Without Thorn the Rose
by Threadbare Threnody
Summary: Lily died, and left a broken James to raise a stranger's son. When a drunken act of violence sees James demoted to prison guard, Harry is inducted into the mysteries of Azkaban, and begins to solve the mysteries of his own existence, too. AH/AU. Minor SLASH: RL/SB, RL/JP, future LV/HP in sequels.
1. Green Light

o─-o─-o─-─-─-─ **WITHOUT THORN THE ROSE** ─-─-─-─o-─o-─o

Summary: When Lily died she left a broken James to raise a stranger's son. When a drunken act of violence sees James demoted to prison guard, Harry is inducted into the mysteries of Azkaban, and begins to solve the mysteries of his own existence, as well. SLASH. AH/AU. Some RL/SB, RL/JP, future LV/HP in sequels.

Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling.

Warnings: SLASH. Not in every chapter, but in some. If there are graphic portions, I will post the that on another website with links given so that I can comply with the rules and regs here, but the slash is integral to the story. Although my intention is to have LV/HP, it will NOT happen in this story but rather in a future sequel. I'm just telling you now so you know what you're getting into. There is some RL/SB and slight RL/JP in this story. However, this is not a romance. Romance will be included in future sequels, as part of the larger story.

Notes: This story is already completed. It has ~90k words. I will post a chapter once a week. I have written about 100k words of the first sequel and have planned out an eight-part series, but I am working full-time on a Ph.D. in Mathematics so I don't have a ton of time to work on this. I definitely plan to finish the series, but it could take several years to do so.

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"_Out of the fertile ground he caused to grow  
__All Trees of noblest kind for sight, smell, taste;  
__And all amid them stood the Tree of Life,  
__High eminent, blooming Ambrosial Fruit  
__Of vegetable Gold; and next to Life  
__Our Death the Tree of Knowledge grew fast by,  
__Knowledge of Good bought dear by knowing ill.  
__Southward through Eden went a River large…"_

"…_Thus was this place,  
__A happy rural seat of various view;  
__Groves whose rich Trees wept odorous Gums and Balm,  
__Others whose fruit burnished with Golden Rind  
__Hung amiable, Hesperian Fables true,  
__If true, here only, and of delicious taste:  
__Betwixt them Lawns, or level Downs, and Flocks  
__Grazing the tender herb, were interposed,  
__Or palmy hillock, or the flowery lap  
__Of some irriguous Valley spread her store,  
__Flowers of all hue, and without Thorn the Rose"_

—John Milton, _Paradise Lost_, Book 4, Lines 216-223 & 246-256 [spelling updated]

o─-─-─-─-─ 1. GREEN LIGHT ─-─-─-─-─o

Harry's first memory was of swimming in green light. For a very long time he had no inkling that this comforting vision was a memory at all. To him, it was simply an old, recurring dream from childhood—like a bit of tattered baby blanket that still evoked nostalgia.

At Uncle Remus' cottage, where he spent many summers as a child, he liked to dive down as far as he could into the lake and stare back towards the light and try to recreate the feeling of being suspended in green. The colour was all wrong—the lake was a murky brownish-green, whereas the light in the dream had been like looking at the sun through leaves. But the feeling was close: the eerie silence, the crushing pressure, the cold, the inexorable force drawing him up towards reality.

Harry would surface with a gasp, and always a little disappointment. In the dark and the cold, he felt on the verge of understanding, and yet he couldn't stay there.

"Harry! Stop trying to touch the bottom!" his father would often call. This was his father's assumption—that Harry must be trying to achieve some foolish Gryffindor feat—and James stubbornly clung to this notion in the face of all evidence. Harry had never been prone to showing off. On the contrary, he was a decidedly secretive child.

Ron, on the other hand, was prone to foolishness and had often tried to swim down and touch the murky, cold bottom of the lake. Once, when they were eight, he had even given himself hearing damage doing it, and then his mother, Molly Weasley, had nearly given them all hearing damage fussing about it. Halfway through laying into Harry for giving Ron stupid ideas, however, Ron had finally opened his mouth.

"Like I would do anything that git thought was cool! He's a _freak_," Ron had spat, glaring at Harry scornfully.

And, just like that, Ron had been dragged off yelping to have his mouth scourgified and then spend the rest of the day in his room.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

It was true enough, though. Harry was a freak, and he knew it. Everyone—the Weasleys, the Longbottoms, Uncle Remus, James—they all knew it. The adults pretended ignorance, and some—Harry's father a case in point—even seemed to have mostly convinced themselves otherwise, but the children were more honest. Harry had tried his whole life to hide his strangeness, yet somehow his true colours always bled through. A perfect example was Harry's strange affinity for the cold.

James was not the most observant of fathers, and normally only roused himself to do his fatherly duties when Harry asked for something. So he had never objected to Harry's habit of wearing summer clothing in winter, even when Harry tracked snow inside on his bare feet. This finally changed when Harry was seven. He had started day school with the other wizarding children in the village, and one day he'd learned that it wasn't a done thing to walk to school without a coat in freezing rain.

The Matron, Miss Stonehearth, had been incensed with Harry for his thoughtlessness, but when she apparated back from his house empty-handed, having confirmed his lack of proper clothing, the look in her eye had changed to pity. That look made Harry squirm inside, and prompted him to say,

"It's all right, Miss Stonehearth, I like the cold."

"Now, Harry, don't be silly. I enjoy a nice spring shower as much as the next witch, but that's an ice storm outside. You should have flooed in, if your dad didn't have time to side-along you."

"But…" he had protested, lower lip trembling. Even at seven, he could hear the anger towards his dad, and he didn't want her thinking the man wasn't behaving properly. "But I like cold. I can even do it myself, look!"

Then he had touched her tea-cup and focused intently, making the china grow frosty and the surface of the liquid become solid.

When he had looked up, beaming in pride, he found Miss Stonehearth ashen and trembling with her hand to her throat. Harry's face had fallen. He'd forgotten that his cold frightened people. James said it made him remember bad things, and he always drank a lot afterwards.

"Go and get ready for class now, dear," she had said weakly after a moment. "Tell the others I'll just be a moment."

After that, Harry had never willingly shown his ability again. Yet, time and again, the power had flared against his will. There was the time when a few of the other children had laughed at him on the playground for falling off his practice broom. He had been so upset that he hadn't even noticed what he was doing until they were all on the ground moaning and shivering. He hadn't gone back to school for a week after that. The Matron had explained to the children that what had happened was simply accidental magic, but that hadn't prevented the other children's wariness.

Another incident happened when he was walking home with Neville, who Harry didn't mind quite as much as the others. A sick-looking dog had darted at them out of the woods, and Harry had frozen it solid as it lunged for Neville's throat. But instead of thanking him, the other boy had vomited on Harry's shoes and run all the way home. Neville steered clear of Harry after that.

Harry's reputation amongst his classmates never recovered from these incidents. Of course, the other children had never thought much of him to begin with. After all, it wasn't _Harry _who had defeated a dark lord. It was his mother. James had made sure that everyone, not just Harry, understood that. No matter what claptrap Dumbledore might write in his opinion pieces for the Prophet, James' stance was firm. Lily Potter was the witch who had defeated You-Know-Who, and James would duel anyone who said different. Harry was just the Boy Who Lived, a title which, when invoked on the playground, had more than once prompted him to kick a classmate in the shins.

And so Harry resigned himself to finding companionship in books, and before long he had convinced himself that friends were not so grand, after all, compared to the infinity of knowledge he could amass.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Ron and Ginny were the worst of the children—they delighted in following Harry and tormenting him—but Tony and Ernie could be just as bad if they cottoned on. Tony was particularly annoying in that he always seemed to see more than the others, and frequently had ideas.

They had caught him, once, in the woods on the edge of town, experimenting with his powers. Harry had frozen a tree until it split open with a loud _crack_. Ron had been the only one to leap out of the bushes, but Harry had sensed the other three hiding. He could always tell who was near him, once he'd met them, but he hadn't yet realized that was abnormal.

"What did you do to that tree, you freak? That might've been a dryad¹ for all"—Ron broke off with a look of shock and disgust at what Harry held cradled in his hands. "What is that!"

"N-nothing," Harry answered tremulously, turning away so as to hide the dying bird with his body. He hadn't realized there were any animals in the tree, and hadn't meant to hurt them.

"It's a baby!" Ron shouted, face darkening. "You murdered a baby! I'm going to tell my dad!"

"No!" Harry yelped. "I didn't mean to—it was an accident. I didn't know there were birds up there."

"I bet you did. I bet you love going around freezing animals. You froze that dog of Neville's."

"It wasn't _his_, it was attacking him!" Now Harry was annoyed. He had saved the boy, and this was how Neville thanked him—by spreading lies about him?

The bird in Harry's hands twitched as if in response to Harry's anger, and he felt its heart, previously pattering as fast as wing beats, now stutter and stop.

"No!" Harry gasped, falling to his knees. He held the fuzzy black bird close to his face, cradled in his hands, and peered imploringly at it, stricken by remorse. "Don't die, birdie. Don't die."

Yet even as one part of Harry implored the bird to live, another part of him thrilled to know that he was witnessing this greatest of life's mysteries, death. Perhaps Ron saw the flush of excitement on Harry's cheeks, the glistening as he moistened his lips, or perhaps he only saw a familiar and convenient target.

"Freak!" Ron yelled, as he pelted Harry with a handful of dead leaves and dirt. Harry scarcely heard the children's footsteps pounding away, so entranced was he by the wonder cradled in his palms.

As the bird died, something else was being born. It took shape from within the bird, leaking out from its open beak: a tiny white wisp, smaller than a grain of rice, and yet as bright as the moon at midnight. Squinting at the light, Harry could spy currents and eddies within it of every colour, so vivid that the rest of the world seemed grey by comparison. He watched, spellbound, as the wisp of light drifted apart like smoke and disappeared.

Harry stared into the space where the light had faded for a long, silent moment. The inside of his head felt like a great forest where the crack of apparition had made every creature stand rigidly still and alert. Finally, Harry looked down at what was cradled in his hands, and saw that it was simply a discarded shell. He tucked it beneath a moist layer of dead leaves, wiped his hands on his trousers, and set off home.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

¹ Dryad: tree nymph (i.e. female spirit of a tree) from Greek mythology

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That night, as James was watching a Quidditch match on the Omnivision, Harry pondered how to phrase a question to his father. It had always been difficult to ask James important questions; Harry had never much liked games of chance, and not knowing whether James would cuff him or kiss him was a particularly unpleasant one.

When the game broke for a series of sponsor's messages ("Sleekeazy—don't leave home without it!"), Harry cleared his throat.

"What," James asked flatly, not looking away from the screen, where a swarm of sparkling pink fairies was applying hair potion to an absurdly grateful witch's hair.

"Er…well…I was wondering…"

"Out with it," James urged, and swigged his firewhiskey. The noxious fumes of the liquor turned Harry's stomach.

"Is there such a thing as a soul?"

James frowned. "Of course there is, lad, how else would wizards and witches get Bonded? It's an oath on your soul."

"Er…yes, but sometimes, when people say things, it's just…" Harry paused, thinking how to explain. "It's like when people ask you how you are, and you always just say 'fine', whether you are or not."

"Hmph," James snorted, wiping his nose on his shirtsleeve. "Half of what people say is just to hear their lips flap, and the other half's to tell you where to stick your broom."

Harry sighed, and glared at the Omnivision, since it wouldn't be wise to glare at his father. A wizard was enthusiastically applying a potion to his broom handle and winking suggestively at the screen. Harry squeaked in surprise as a hand descended on his head. His body tensed, but quickly relaxed, as James tousled Harry's messy black locks and drew the boy to his side for a one-armed hug. This occurrence was rare enough that Harry tensed again, not sure how to react.

"Don't worry, son, your mum's with the Light. You can be sure of that."

Although Harry knew perfectly well that this was nothing but a sop, he nevertheless felt something tense inside him relax at these words, and he buried his face in James' shoulder, inhaling the cherished scents of pipe smoke and firewhiskey, floo powder and that special unique scent that was his father's alone. Every second wrapped in that warm, strong embrace seemed stolen.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

James' response, though it had warmed Harry, didn't help at all with his new quandary. Was what he had seen a soul passing from this world or wasn't it?

"What's put you onto this?" Remus asked quietly, sipping his steaming cup of tea.

"Erm…" Harry chewed a biscuit and squirmed on his hard chair. He and his 'uncle' were sitting across from each other at the dining room table, and had been dissecting the Sunday Prophet until Harry's question had popped out. "Well…"

Remus smiled and waited patiently. He was a good listener, never putting words in Harry's mouth or becoming overly impatient.

"I saw a bird die the other day," Harry revealed hesitantly, "and…well…"

"Mmm," Remus murmured, eyes shifting to look into middle distance. "You're wondering if birds have souls?"

"Well, that, and other things."

"Such as?"

"What does a soul look like?"

Remus blinked, and his eyebrows twitched slightly upward. Then he smiled. "You know, that sounds like a question Lily would have asked."

Harry frowned down at the last of the chocolate chip biscuits Remus had brought. Harry's uncle always brought food on his visits, as if he thought Harry might not be eating enough. He had used to visit more often, but James had taken to shouting at the soft-spoken man of late, and now Remus only came on Sundays.

Remus often compared Harry to his mother, using these remarks as springboards to share titbits of Lily's life. Yet, though he cherished learning about the mother he had never known, it made Harry uneasy to be compared to her. Lily was almost a mythic figure to Harry, like a goddess. James had told Harry so often of how his mother had saved Harry's life with her magic, sacrificing her life for his, that Harry could recite the story like scripture.

"She was very interested in philosophy. I think she learned about it in the muggle world, and she wanted to know how—"

"I'm not talking about philosophy," Harry cut in abruptly, eager to nip another rambling session in the bud. "I'm talking about reality."

"But that's just the thing, Harry. You'll find many references to the soul in wizarding culture, and there are even highly developed magical theories of the soul, but there's no hard evidence yet."

"But…" Harry frowned and nibbled the last biscuit. "But surely they've studied it…"

"_They_—the Unspeakables, and some of the Academagicians—may have, but it's very hard to pin down something you can't even see."

Harry opened his mouth to snap that _of course you can see it_—then closed it with a sharp click of his teeth.

"Hmm," was all he said.

"I'll send you a book," Remus promised.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Remus did indeed send a book—three books, in fact—but none of them were exactly what Harry wanted.

The first was a book for children about the 'facts of life': where babies come from, and what happens when your pet kneazle dies. Remus had included an apologetic note in this book, explaining that he wasn't sure how much Harry had learned at day school about wizarding beliefs. Harry knew what his uncle really meant was that he wasn't sure what sort of tripe James had been filling Harry's head with. From this book, Harry learned that children were to be told that, upon death, souls "return to the Light from whence they came".

The second book was a reference guide to common rituals such as Bonding spouses, blessing children, and bidding farewell to departed loved ones. Harry learned from this book that if one filled one's house with enough symbols of light and exhorted the soul strongly enough, one could help guide one's loved ones to the Light. He wondered what Lily would have made of such pandering drivel.

The third book, Remus had written, might be a bit advanced for Harry, but he could hold onto it until he was older since it had belonged to Lily. Harry opened it in the middle and read "The view we have just been examining, in company with most theories about the soul, involves the following absurdity: they all join the soul to a body, or place it in a body, without adding any specification of the reason of their union, or of the bodily conditions required for it."¹

As Harry was frowning thoughtfully over this statement, a slip of paper escaped from the book. Picking it up, he saw that it was a receipt from a store called Barnes & Noble—was that in Diagon Alley? Recognizing the £ sign dotted several times on the receipt, Harry realized this must be a muggle book. He sighed and set the book aside. If wizards couldn't see souls, muggles definitely couldn't.

And so it was that Harry Potter, at nine years of age, found himself longing for what men have feared and fought throughout the ages—an intimate acquaintance with death.

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¹ From "On the Soul", by Aristotle

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_Flourish & Blotts • Diagon Alley • __Ex libro, ad linguam, ad virgam__¹_

_1 February 1989 M.E.²_

_Dear Mr Potter,_

_Please find enclosed your shipment of four (4) books, as requested by owl order on 28__th__ January._

_Into the Light__ by Fauss Lumiere_

_Encounters with Death__ by Filos Thanatos_

_A Survey of Recent Developments in Magical Theory__ by Clark Scribbensham_

_Dark Rituals and How to Disrupt Them__ by Claudus Ritus_

_Should you have any difficulty with your order, please do not hesitate to contact us by owl at any time._

_Sincerely,_

_Alexander Flourish_

_Manager, Flourish & Blotts_

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

¹ Latin: 'from book, to tongue, to wand'

² M.E. = Muggle Era

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

_Flourish & Blotts • Diagon Alley • __Ex libro, ad linguam, ad virgam_

_15 March 1989 M.E._

_Dear Mr Potter,_

_We regret to inform you that at the present time we are unable to fulfil your owl order. Please refer to the list below for an explanation, and do not hesitate to owl again with any further requests. We look forward to your continued business in future._

_Oulden Rygts¹__ – access restricted by Department of Magical Law Enforcement_

_Wicchedome of Soules__ – access restricted by Department of Magical Law Enforcement_

_Deth and Other Develes__ – out of print; consult used bookshop_

_Please be aware that according to current regulations, we are required by law to keep records of all requests for restricted books and to make these available to the D.M.L.E. upon request._

_Sincerely,_

_Alexander Flourish_

_Manager, Flourish & Blotts_

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

¹ Middle English spellings checked at University of Michigan electronic Middle English Dictionary

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

James almost never took firecalls, and Harry was in charge of reading the owl post, so it was easy to get away with skipping school once or twice a week, and Harry relished the freedom. He usually spent his time in the woods around Ottery St. Catchpole, climbing trees and splashing in the brook. Now that he had a mystery to contend with, he spent more and more time investigating that, as well. It was on a day such as this that Harry finally made progress in his investigation of souls.

Harry had managed to catch a mouse by freezing it until it lay curled up and shivering, and he was about to freeze it solid so as to get a look at its soul, when a rustling in the leaves below alerted him that there was a snake coiling itself about his feet. He stood stock still, and the hair all over his body stood on end as the greyish-brown snake's long, black, forked tongue flicked out to taste the air and brushed his bare leg.

Harry had known for years that he was a Parselmouth; indeed, it was the very first secret he had ever kept from his father. But he had never bothered with speaking to the scaly creatures, much. James seemed to have a phobia of them, and most snakes were not intelligent enough to make interesting company. Harry thought the ability overrated, in fact, and would gladly have exchanged it for the ability to speak to birds or horses.

"Don't you dare bite me," Harry hissed at the snake.

"I wouldn't bite the likesss of you," the snake replied in a whispery hiss of a voice. "You'd tassste horrid. Now drop the moussse before I decide to sssee how you taste after all."

Harry arched an eyebrow at the unusually talkative serpent, and quickly formulated a plan. "Say, sssnake. How many mice can you catch in a day? Or other things. Birdsss or whatever."

"I don't eat birdsss, you imbecile. Do I look like I can fly?" the snake groused, winding its way determinedly up Harry's leg in the direction of the mouse. "And if I wasss any good at catching mice, I wouldn't need to take yoursss, would I?"

"Oh," Harry muttered, disappointed. "Well, can you maybe tell me sssome areas where there are lots of animals like mice and rabbitsss?"

The snake slithered up Harry's torso uninvited, making Harry squirm, and continued down his arm. "Why should I tell you? You'd just go sssteal all the good food," it replied resentfully.

Harry raised his arm up as high as he could. Oddly, the smooth, cool feeling of scales on his skin was not unpleasant.

"I'd let you eat them," Harry offered. "I jussst want to watch them die."

The snake's mouth snapped open at an obscenely wide angle, and Harry wisely dropped the little rodent down the gullet. The snake turned then, and appraised Harry, tasting the air around him repeatedly as Harry brought his arm down and held the snake up before his face. Its eyes were rich amber with black slit pupils, and its scales were a magnificent coat of armour. The creature was about a metre long, brownish grey with a long black stripe crossed at right angles by smaller strokes that extended down the length of its body.

The snake tilted its head. "What do you want to watch thingsss die for, human, if not to eat them? Are you a sssadist? A necrophiliac?"

Harry frowned and wondered if it was quite normal for snakes to know such large words. The ones he'd met before were not nearly so eloquent.

"No," he explained, "I don't like particularly killing thingsss. But it's not like it destroysss them. Their souls go on, I think, just somewhere else. And I make sssure they don't suffer. It's just, I'm trying to figure out how souls work. For some reason I'm the only person who can sssee them. I've been conducting experiments…but I need more souls. I wish I could store them somehow…they alwaysss fade away…" Harry trailed off, staring in frustration off through the trees. When he looked back at the snake, its eyes were closed, and it was drooping off his arm like a wet tube sock.

"Hey!" Harry yelled. "Are you even listening, you ssstupid reptile?"

The snake grumbled, and opened one eye at Harry. "You humansss…so talkative, and ssso boring."

Harry looked askance at the creature before him. "Are there other sssnakes like you?"

"What do mean by that?" the snake demanded, as though it were offended.

"Ahaha…" Harry rubbed the back of his head nervously. "Nothing, nothing…ssso, how about it? You tell me where the mice are and I'll catch them for you."

"Nah," the snake replied, slithering off his arm and down his body.

"Why not?" Harry demanded, yanking it back by the tail.

"Sssleepy. Need a sunny rock."

"What? C'mon, all the mice you can eat."

"No mice—rock, rock! Sssun!"

"Are all snakes this stupid?" Harry wondered aloud in English, and the snake snarled at this, fangs flashing. Harry threw the snake into the leaves several paces away from himself, but, after a couple seconds of thought, trotted after it as it wended its way through the woods toward a sunny glade.

"Say, sssnake…" Harry started, trying a friendlier tone. "I was wondering…what happens when a snake diesss?"

The snake glared at Harry. "Kindly remove yourssself from my presence, you detessstable wretch. I'm going for a nap and I don't need you pessstering me."

"Yeah, well," Harry blustered, seriously annoyed. Animals were so much more helpful in stories. "That'sss exactly what I'll do if you don't answer me—I'll tie your tail to a tree branch and leave you dangling. How do you like that?"

"I'll bite you."

"I'll freezeyou!"

The snake paused in the leaves and regarded Harry implacably for a moment, tongue flicking out to taste the air between them.

"Fine, you odiousss little human. What happens when a sssnake dies? It rotsss and gets eaten up by other creatures. Maggotsss. Other snakes. Sometimes a dog. Then they die and get eaten by sssomething else. Ergo, we are all made of corpses."

Harry blinked. It was a certainly a unique point of view. "No, look, I don't mean the _body_, that's just a—a vessel. What happensss to the _being_ that was _in _the body?" Harry couldn't disguise the hunger in his voice.

"How the bloody hell ssshould I know? I'm just a sssnake!"

Harry sighed. He couldn't argue with that. "Well, have you ever seen anything come out of the body when something diesss?"

"Sometimes they piss and shit themselvesss. Is that what you're looking for? I can give you sssome right now."

"No," Harry recoiled in disgust. "Are all snakes ssso…vulgar?"

The snake hissed a laugh. "Vulgar? Of course we're vulgar. We're creatures that ssslide around on our bellies all day. What about you, hatchling? What sssort of creature are you?"

Harry frowned at the snake, whose head was cocked to one side, studying him. "I…I don't know."

"Perhapsss you're a snake, then. Would you like to come down here and try it out?"

Harry considered, then got down on his hands and knees and stretched out on the crackling bed of dried leaves. He pressed his arms to his sides and rested his chin on the ground, eye-to-eye with the snake.

"Good," the snake murmured. "Now, hatchling. Close your eyes and be ssstill." Harry obeyed. "Do you hear little feet rustling? Little hearts beating? Do you sssense heat nearby?"

Harry was silent a long moment. Then he felt it. First, the life directly in front of him, the snake. Then, a smaller life, ahead and to the right, foolishly coming nearer. He didn't _hear_ the creature, nor did he feel its heat with a snake-like sense. Rather, he sensed its light. The harder he focused on the impression of light, the more clearly the analogy stuck, until he was really seeing a silhouette of light, with his eyes shut. The nearer light was a wispy ball about the size of a marble that throbbed red and green in slow, steady pulses. The farther light was a grain of rice that fluttered blue and yellow.

"Now," the snake whisper-hissed. "Ssstrike!"

Harry struck with a focused bolt of his ice-power, and the farther light flared and coruscated wildly, like a candle blowing in the wind. Then it steadied, and the colour faded to white, and finally the little wisp of light drifted away into nothing.

Harry opened his eyes just in time to see the snake devour the mouse whole. "Greedy pig," he muttered.

"Never," the snake snapped, "compare me to a mammal."

"You ssseem pretty mammalian to me," Harry muttered, rising a bit on his elbows.

"Do you see teatsss on me? Do I seem the type to let hatchlings attach themselves to me like leeches and suck out my…excretionsss?"

Harry grimaced, trying to ignore the accusatory look the snake was giving him, as though since he was a mammal and a child he might try to nurse her. "Are you even a girl?"

"Obviousssly, dimwit," the snake snorted, looking him over speculatively. How Harry knew that her completely immobile face currently looked speculative was a mystery. "Well, you do strike your prey with ssstyle, at least. And you are rather warm and tree-like."

"Tree-like!" Harry exclaimed, then frowned as he was not sure whether he was being insulted or complimented.

"I suppose I could be amenable to sssome sort of…arrangement."

"Sssure," Harry agreed sourly. "I give you all the food and warmth you want, and I get what? Creative new insultsss?"

"Precisssely," the snake hissed in satisfaction. "And I can watch your back. When I'm awake that is."

Harry glared at the snake for a moment. "Ssso you're basically good for nothing." The snake hissed a laugh. Harry grunted and stuck out an arm. "Well, climb on," he demanded grouchily. "What ssshould I call you, anyway?"

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

James Potter learned that his son had gained a familiar when, upon reaching down to tousle his son's hair, his hand encountered a cool, slick, reptilian surface that was poking out the collar of Harry's shirt like a monstrous tentacle.

"Eeeee!" he shrieked, backing up so fast that he banged into the counter and knocked the casserole Molly Weasley had sent over into the sink, which was currently scrubbing dishes. The casserole he'd been planning to serve for dinner was promptly scrubbed down the drain and the dish was stacked in the drainer.

James looked between his son's new familiar and his ruined dinner with equal magnitudes of horror, then turned and drained the rest of the Ogden's.

"No snakes in the house," was all he said, "and it's _your_ turn to get dinner. Then you can explain that—that _thing_." It might have been Harry's imagination, but he thought James might have been trembling as he regarded the reptile with fear and disgust.

Two cans of Spaghetti-O's later—it _was_ a mixed community, and those muggles did make cheap, tasty food, after all—James got a rather lacklustre explanation.

"I found her in the woods," Harry said, assuming a calculatedly innocent look. "She's really, er…interesting."

"Do you even know if she's poisonous?"

"Of course not," Harry replied smoothly, trying not to assume the sheepish grin that always gave away his lies. "Anyway, she wouldn't hurt anyone. She's agreed to be my familiar."

"Agreed…?" James stared in puzzlement for a second, then dropped his spoon in horror and clapped his hands to his head. "No. Ohhhh—_no_. Harry, _tell _me you can't talk to that—_creature_!"

Harry just dropped his head and stared at his hands, which were writhing and wrestling each other in his lap. He was angry, but for some reason his throat stuck when he tried to speak in his own defence, and tears begin to gather in his eyes, hot and stinging.

"Please, gods, Lily," James prayed, looking up at the ceiling. "Why did you do this to me? I didn't sign up for _this_."

Harry clenched his jaw in fury. It wasn't his fault he could talk to snakes, and it certainly wasn't his mum's. Besides, why was it even bad? And why did he always have to get teary when he was angry at his dad? It was so stupid.

"I'm yours, too!" he bit out, glaring through his fringe at his father. He mercilessly squelched a sob, but a little squeak came out, and snot started to drip from his nose. He angrily maintained eye contact with his father. "Half my blood's yours. Why do you always have to—blame—h-her…? I'm _your_ son, too!"

James stared darkly at Harry, shaking his head, and suddenly it dawned on Harry. Something that would explain all of this: why Harry had freaky ice powers while James couldn't stand the cold; why James loved zipping through the wide open sky on a broom while Harry preferred dark, enclosed spaces; why James' hair was wild and curly while Harry's was stick straight; why James' skin was a healthy tan while Harry's was morbidly white; why James had terrible eyesight, while Harry could see like an eagle.

Harry released a small sob, lower lip trembling. "U-unless you're…unless you're…not?"

James' eyes softened, and he seemed to sag, as though he'd been holding a weight of years aloft, and it had all come tumbling down.

"Son…" he started. "I _am_ your father. I'll always be that. But—I'm not your blood, no."

Harry buried his face in his hands and doubled over. A great pain and sadness welled up inside him. Nothing made any sense. Everything was upside down, and there was no one there he could trust to guide him through this darkness. He felt so alone.

"I've wanted to tell you so many times…"

"Yeah," Harry cried, voice breaking on his sobs. "Every time I bollixed something up, you've wanted to tell me, 'No son of mine would be such a l-loser!'"

"That's not fair!" James cried, bringing his fist down on the table. "I've done my best!"

"I didn't even have a coat for winter until the Matron at school found out!" Harry burst out.

"Damn it! I've put food on this table. I've put a roof over your head. I'm not perfect! I'm not Lily!" He wiped a hand over his face, seeming to sober at the memory of Harry's mum. "But I haven't given up…and that hasn't always been easy, you know!" He pointed a finger at Harry. "You haven't exactly made this a walk in the park, you know. So what if you didn't have a coat? You don't _need_ a damn coat. What's a man supposed to do with a boy like that? I've done my best."

Harry looked at him through a veil of tears, struggling to maintain the last shred of composure, and thought, _My God. This is his best. __**This**__ is his best__._


	2. The Lost Star

o─-o─-o─-─-─-─** WITHOUT THORN THE ROSE **─-─-─-─o-─o-─o

Summary: When Lily died she left a broken James to raise a stranger's son. When a drunken act of violence sees James demoted to prison guard, Harry is inducted into the mysteries of Azkaban, and begins to solve the mysteries of his own existence, as well. SLASH. AH/AU. Some RL/SB, RL/JP, future LV/HP in sequels.

Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling. I do not own any rights to Harry Potter, but nor am I making any money off this. If anything I'm losing money…as well as sleep…sanity…

Warnings: SLASH. That means men. Having sex. With each other. But not in this chapter.

Notes: This story is already completed. It has 16 chapters and 85k words. I am posting the first three chapters together to get you started, and will henceforth post a chapter once a week. I have written about 100k words of the first sequel and have planned out an eight-part series, but I am working full-time on a Ph.D. in mathematics so I don't have a ton of time to work on this. I definitely plan to finish the series, but it could take several years to do so.

o─-─-─-─-─ 2. THE LOST STAR ─-─-─-─-─o

Harry had long been placed in his own reading and writing group at day school because of his superior skills.

"Loads better'n some 'o've done with 'ogwarts," the Assistant Matron said.

The Head Matron disagreed. "I reckon he's a sight better than some at the Ministry," she said. "But just because you can turn a clever phrase and use a dictionary doesn't mean you've got any more sense than a flobberworm, boy."

As he failed at pretty much everything else in life, Harry took an overlarge amount of pride in his school work, and was at pains to show the Matrons that their faith wasn't misplaced. And, because did have more sense than a flobberworm, after all, he soon realized that the old saying—knowledge is power—was quite true.

For example, knowing that there was a shortcut through the woods from his school to his house let him avoid walking home with the others. (James, when asked, had said that growing boys needed to put on a bit of muscle instead of relying on floos and apparition.) If he'd known a bit more, however, he might have realized that the pile of stones that marked the entrance to the Potter wards made an excellent place for children to lie in wait.

Harry was blithely hissing with his new familiar, who now insisted that he refer to her as 'My Lady', when Tony, Ernie, and Ron jumped out from behind the crazily balanced pile of stones and pelted Harry with dirt and gravel.

Lady hastily ducked back into Harry's shirt, angrily muttering under her breath, "Nasssty baby-humans, you should freeze them all, hatchling, and feed them to dogs!"

"What's that you've got?" Ron demanded as Harry marched stoically past them, eyes firmly on the front door of the Potter cottage. "Is that a snake?"

Harry kept his eyes forward and walked quickly. He had learned over the years that anything he did—defending himself, taking the offense, trying to talk sense—only encouraged them.

Tony danced into Harry's path. Harry swerved around him and entered the wards, smiling grimly at the feel of the magic washing over him. Then he turned and looked at them all. He spied Ginny, still crouching behind the cairn.

"It is a snake," she called. "I see its tail hanging out the bottom of his shirt."

Ron lunged forward and swiped at said tail, and was thrown out of the wards with a crack and a flash of light. He landed spread-eagled in the middle of the dirt road, groaning.

"Go home," Harry told them, sneering, and turned to go into the house.

James was standing on the front porch. Harry paled and darted around him into the cottage, making for his room before he could get an earful.

"I thought you liked the Weasleys," he said, following Harry and blocking the door Harry slammed. It bounced off his fist.

"They don't like me," Harry answered, glaring. "They've never liked me. Is this really the first you've noticed?"

"You always seemed to get on well in the summers. Swimming at Remus' place."

Harry sighed sharply and threw his bag of books into a corner. "You see what you want to see."

"Who were the other two?"

"Ernie Macmillan and Tony Goldstein."

"Hm. I went to school with their parents. I could give them a firecall…"

"No!" Harry shouted. "I don't need you to fight my battles. Besides, I don't care about them. They can hate me if they like."

"Harry…couldn't you just try being a little friendlier?"

"What does it matter? I don't need friends like _that_."

"If you didn't carry that bloody snake around all the time…"

"I'm allowed to!" Harry snapped back defensively. "Even kids have a right to their familiars! It says so in Magical Decree 13, section 1, paragraph 3."

James clenched his teeth. Harry had hidden Lady for a week before he'd found out that James wasn't allowed to take her away. He wouldn't have put it past his father to dash her brains out with a rock.

"Besides, they threw the rocks _before_ they saw her. _I'm_ the one they hate."

"Can't you even just _pretend _to be normal?"

"Why is it always _my_ fault?" Harry shouted. A burst of accidental magic shoved James from the room and slammed the door behind him. Harry flung himself onto his bed and buried his head in a pillow. He didn't notice that the room had become frosty until his familiar spoke up.

"It'sss too cold," Lady complained.

"Oh ssshut up."

"Ssshut up, my Lady," she corrected him in a smug hiss.

"Keep that up and I'll chuck you back in the woodsss," Harry hissed back.

"Pleassse do. Anything to be rid of your whinging."

"Blasted snake never letting me have the last word," he muttered in English.

"I can underssstand that, you know."

"And you sssay you're a regular old adder," Harry snorted. "Pleassse."

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Although Harry had shouted at his father, when the next fall came around and it was time for a new school year to start, he took the man's words to heart, and made an effort to act more like the others. He didn't disavow his familiar, but he left it at home. During recess, instead of reading his book, he talked stiltedly to the few children who didn't utterly loathe him. He even went so far as to take Neville aside and ask him to stop spreading lies about him.

"I know you saved me, Harry," Neville said, eyes wide and innocent. "I'm sorry I never said thank you. But I haven't been spreading gossip. I never told anyone anything except that a dog tried to attack me and you stopped it with some accidental magic. I dunno what Ron's said but he didn't get it from me."

Neville scowled. "He's a right git sometimes." He paused, seeming to work up his courage. "It scares me, what you can do." He shivered. "When you made it go cold like that, I remembered…horrible things… I saw my mum and dad…" He ran away suddenly, looking like he was going to vomit again, and never saw the pale and stricken look on Harry's face.

After two months of coming home without any bruises or dirt on his clothes, James sprang a surprise on Harry.

"I'm throwing you a birthday party," James declared over dinner (hamburgers and mashed potatoes from a box). He had been a bit more attentive than usual since he had witnessed Harry being bullied.

Harry eyed him sceptically. "Can't we just have Remus over like always?"

"You need friends that aren't adults. Besides, it's the full moon then."

Harry sighed and squirmed a bit on his chair.

"You only turn ten once," James teased.

Harry scowled. "Ten's not special, it's not even prime!"

James grinned. "It'll be fun…we'll bob for apples and dress up like muggles!"

"And what about Samhain¹?"

James rolled his eyes. "Why you are so obsessed with those dusty old holidays I'll never understand."

"It's the sacred feast of the dead!" Harry answered, petulantly. "We can pray to Mum."

"Fine, fine, we'll set a place for Lily and light some fires."

Harry grunted and stirred his mashed potatoes. "All right, then," he relented.

James beamed sunnily. "Good, because I've already invited your whole class."

"Dad!" Harry shouted, jumping to his feet and shoving his chair back.

James winked impishly, and the Marauder-ish gesture caused Harry to feel a pang of guilt for not being the son the man had wanted.

"No one's going to come," he grumbled, sitting back down, but inwardly he thought of two or three who might. Perhaps Neville would.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

¹ Samhain was a Gaelic festival marking the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter or the "darker half" of the year. Most commonly it is held on 31 Oct-1 Nov (halfway between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice). Bonfires were lit and there were rituals involving them. It was seen as a time when the "door" to the Otherworld opened enough for the souls of the dead, and other beings, to come into our world. Feasts were held, at which the souls of dead kin were beckoned to attend and a place set at the table for them. People also took steps to protect themselves from harmful spirits, which is thought to have led to the custom of wearing costumes. Divination was also done at Samhain.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

At seven o'clock on October 31st, James and Harry sat in blue jeans and t-shirts on the couch in the front room, surrounded by bowls and platters of party food and not a single guest. They had been sitting there for an hour. James was, inexplicably, wearing an eye-patch and a hook on one hand. When the clock over the fireplace rang out seven notes, Harry said,

"We may as well clean up."

A light rapping came at the door and James looked up excitedly. Against his better wishes, Harry's heart also leapt into his mouth. He hadn't realized that he still had any hope.

"I'll get it," James said, hurrying to the door. But when he opened it, no one was there. Only a box, and an owl winging away.

"Well, at least someone sent a present," he said, returning to the couch. The box was unwrapped, but the lid read _To Hairy From Your Friends At School._ "Not a very good speller."

Harry had an ominous feeling just before James opened the lid, and he wasn't wrong. Inside the box was the headless body of a snake. For an awful, shocked moment, he thought it was Lady, but he quickly realized that it wasn't even an adder, but rather a common grass snake.

Harry bit his lip and looked away, at the platters of untouched food, the banner proclaiming 'Happy Birthday Harry!' in ever-changing colours, the festive balls of lights James had charmed all over the ceiling. His heart felt like a scrap of meat someone had just thrown to the hogs. He'd figured most people wouldn't come, but hadn't there even been one or two? Never mind presents, but not even a card? The Matrons had sent something, and Remus of course, but that wasn't the same.

"Let's…let's clean up," Harry said in a quavering voice, and picked up a platter of cheese on crackers. He started to carry it into the kitchen, but James jerked it from his hands and threw it against the wall.

Harry stared at his father, shocked and frightened. He'd never seen his father's face so filled with rage and hatred before. It twisted his normally quite handsome features into an ugly mask.

"You're not going back there anymore!" James spat.

"Oh…'kay," Harry agreed, rather pleased by this statement, all things considered.

"You can learn at home. From books." James declared, face rigid with determination. Harry nodded.

Then, without warning, James seized Harry and dragged him into his lap. Harry stiffened, alarmed at the prospect of a spanking, but James only held Harry to his chest, arms fiercely tight, as if he expected someone to try to snatch Harry away. His hand stroked Harry's limp black hair over and over, the hair that helped give the lie to their relationship, and Harry felt himself begin to come unglued. He held the tears in at first, but then James murmured, "Just let it out, son," and Harry found himself bawling like a three-year-old in his father's arms.

"I'm sorry," James whispered, "I'm so sorry. I know I'm a horrible father. Please forgive me, Lily. Please help me be better."

And so, after all, they spent Samhain praying to the dead.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Harry never went back to the day school after that, and James never complained about his snake or his lack of friends again. True to his word, James enrolled Harry in a correspondence school called Aeropoli Academy in Diagon Alley, and he even let Harry pick his own courses. The courses were designed as a supplement for Hogwarts students, so they were advanced for Harry's age, but he was excited to be working ahead. He'd been laughably under-challenged at the day school.

Harry chose four courses: _An Introduction to Academic Writing & Research_, which showed students how to use a library to its greatest effect and write essays more easily; _The Proper Preparation for Potions_, which introduced all the basic techniques of preparing potions ingredients and taught students how to mix, stir, heat, and cool potions so that they wouldn't explode; _Middle English 1_, which Harry wanted to learn so that he could read books from the medieval period; and, finally, _Rituals Throughout the Ages_, in which Harry hoped he might have access to some of the knowledge he'd been denied access to through Flourish & Blotts.

Harry fully intended, someday, to scour Knockturn Alley for books on souls and death, but unfortunately, as owls are a Ministry-regulated means of communication and James never let him explore on his own, that route was not yet open to him. He knew, however, that Hogwarts had many books of ancient and forbidden magic, so perhaps research of such was permitted in an educational context.

Each course had a professor who set and graded the assignments, and Harry made it his first order of business to establish good communications with each of them. Unfortunately, the Ancient Greek professor, Melani Kardia, ignored everything except assignments, and these she looked over only cursorily. Harry suspected the woman of actually being nothing more than a cleverly charmed quill.

The Potions professor, one Arsenius Jigger, on the other hand, seemed to be an imbecile who only knew how to chop, dice, crush, and powder and probably couldn't have passed his own tests. That he had actually written textbooks was an alarming and disturbing fact, especially given that the one Harry had bought read 'A Hogwarts Staple for 17 Decades'. Could the man really be that old? If so, senility might explain a thing or two.

Harry just kept reminding himself that it was infinitely better he learn potions now than at the hands of that enemy to Potters everywhere, Severus Snape. Harry had heard stories from Bill and Charlie Weasley that the man gnashed his teeth every time someone mentioned Potters, be it James, Harry, or even a field.

The woman who taught Writing & Research, Gertrude Richtig, was quite helpful, and quick to respond, but she always sent back Harry's letters covered in red ink along with her replies, even if he was just asking her how the weather was in London. He hoped he never met her in person, as he wouldn't put it past her to brain him with an inkpot if he accidentally split an infinitive in her presence.

The rituals class, taught by a woman who went simply by Narcissa, was a bit of a disappointment, as the only rituals they studied in detail were Ministry approved ones, but Harry was able to obtain several restricted tomes on the pretence of an extra credit project. Unfortunately, they were charmed to prevent being copied, even by hand, but at least Harry could read them.

For every question answered by the restricted books, however, two new questions sprang up in its place. Harry learned that wizards had once believed that all souls were reincarnated, but no basis was given for the belief. All the texts he found seemed adamant that animals didn't have souls, yet he had seen evidence to the contrary. Souls could only be made visible by certain dark magics, yet Harry could see them all the time, even with his eyes shut. At least the descriptions matched what Harry saw. Rituals existed that were supposed to split, suck out, or even destroy the soul, but the names of these rituals weren't mentioned, and they were supposed to be diabolical in the extreme.

All in all, Harry was deeply unsatisfied with what he learned, and to top it off, he had to produce a truly spectacular extra credit essay to justify having had the books for so long. For his thesis, he chose 'the lack of documented experimentation and evidence of the effects of rituals has left the wizarding world to stagnate in a mire of baseless superstition and prejudice.' He felt a certain glee when he rolled up his thirty-six inches of parchment and watching them winged off towards London.

A week later, when the parchment returned, he was shocked to find that written at the top in Narcissa's dark green ink and exquisite penmanship was the following note:

_This would be an outstanding paper at any age, Mr Potter. You are a true prodigy. I happen to agree with your views. I hope you will rectify this matter one day, but I doubt I'll live long enough to see the Ministry that will allow it. —Your cousin, Narcissa Black Malfoy_

"Dad," Harry asked at dinner. "Are you related to the Malfoys?"

James dropped his fork on the floor and retrieved it hastily, muttering, "Scourgify." Then he looked askance at Harry. "Not to my knowledge, though I suppose all purebloods are distantly related. Why on earth would you think that?"

"Someone told me Narcissa Malfoy was my cousin."

James raised an eyebrow. "Who?"

Harry shrugged. "One of my professors."

"Which professor?" James asked darkly, his brows drawn down.

"Er…Narcissa Malfoy?" Harry offered hesitantly.

James slammed his cutlery down. "What! That—that _Death Eater_ is your teacher? Why didn't you tell me this? What else has she told you?"

"So, is it true?" Harry asked.

James waved his hand irritably. "Her father, Cygnus, was my first cousin. That makes her your…"—he screwed up his face in thought for a moment—"…second cousin." He paused, and his face darkened. "Well, it would make her that, if you were mine."

"Have you got other Death Eaters in the family?" Harry asked blandly.

James glared balefully at Harry. "Eat your bloody dinner. You're withdrawing from that course tomorrow."

Harry shrugged. "'Kay." He'd already gotten what he wanted out of it. "So are there? Other Death Eaters in the family?"

"I'm half Black," James muttered over his forkful of green beans. "What do you think?"

"What about Sirius Black? Are you related to him?" The man who'd blown up an entire floor of the ministry was second in notoriety only to the Dark Lord himself.

James threw his fork across the room. It stuck, quivering, in the wall behind Harry's head. "Don't mention that name in front of me, you morbid little snake!" he roared.

Harry fled.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

_April 4__th__, 1990_

_Potter Cottage, Ottery St. Catchpole_

_Dear Cousin,_

_I regret to report that my father has demanded my withdrawal from your excellent course. I am, of course, heartbroken, but I confess that my purpose in taking the course was satisfied when I got to read the wonderful books you sent. I only hope that Hogwarts has such informative tomes, or else I may have to campaign for a more northerly clime._

_It seems that our branch of the family is on poor terms with yours, and I hope that this can also be one of the matters which I rectify in future. Alas, it may be that I will not have the power to do so for some time._

_There is one family matter about which I am curious, and I hope that you might grace me with your wisdom. It seems my father is not fond of hearing the name of one of his more noted cousins. I wasn't aware of any acquaintance between them._

_I hope, dear lady, that we may meet again someday and have occasion to spend time together._

_Yours truly,_

_Harry Azrael Potter_

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

_6 April, 1581 A.E.¹_

_Malfoy Manor, Wiltshire_

_Dear Harry Azrael,_

_Congratulations on figuring out how to remove the charm on this letter, my dear._

_I'm sorry to hear that your father doesn't approve of me as a professor. Indeed, that was why I had kept my last name from you. Still, I'm glad you got what you wanted out of the course. In my experience, the books at Hogwarts are on par with the books I sent you. Other books, such as those in our library at Malfoy Manor, do have more information, but aren't necessarily complete or correct. It can be very dangerous to try things written in such books. Complex and advanced spells and techniques are often a closely guarded secret in the wizarding world and sometimes misinformation is used as a weapon._

_According to some acquaintances of my husband, there are more informative books at Durmstrang as well; however, I fear that your reputation might precede you to such a place. As a half-blood, you would also be held to certain higher standards, though I'm sure that would not be a problem for you. I wish you the best of luck on whatever you decide._

_As to the matter of our famous cousin, I'm not surprised you don't know anything about it. I knew both your father and Sirius growing up and at Hogwarts, and they were always the best of friends and closer even than most brothers. Their former relationship is common knowledge in the wizarding world, so I don't think I'm revealing any secrets by telling you so, although I am sure James would rather you not know. As I understand it, Sirius eventually joined the Dark Lord to fight for his lover, while James joined the Light's cause for the same reason. In the end, each lost his love. More than that is not my story to tell._

_I hope that we may stay in touch in future, dear cousin. I have a son your age, Draco, who will be in your year at Hogwarts and would like to meet his cousin. Perhaps someday the bitterness of the past will fade and our great family can be reunited._

_With Pride and Love,_

_Narcissa Black Malfoy_

_Postscript – I am curious about something, Harry. I had been given to understand that it was a Potter tradition to give the first born son his middle name after his father. What was the inspiration for yours? I have never heard it before, so was it perhaps chosen by your mother after a muggle relative? Do let me know, as I am rather taken with it._

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

¹ A.E. = Arthurian Era

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

"Uncle Remus," Harry asked hesitantly, stirring a melting sugar cube into his steaming cup of tea. "Do you know where my middle name comes from?"

Remus set his pen down (he had been doing the Prophet's Sunday crossword) and frowned. "You know, I'm not sure. When Lily first started looking for names, she only wanted a first name, because she said she was going to follow the Potter tradition and use your father's name for your middle name. But I suppose she changed her mind at some point. I do know Harry is after her little brother, who died as a child."

Harry bit his lip. "Uncle Remus…I…I…"

Remus, ever sensitive to the needs of those around him, scooted closer and put his hand on Harry's shoulder. "What is it, Harry?"

"Dad…h-he's not…"

"Not?"

"Not my real father."

Remus gasped. Harry darted a quick look through his shaggy fringe at the man's face.

"Who told you that, Harry?"

"I asked Dad and he said it was true. He said I wasn't his blood."

"I never knew that, Harry."

"We got into a big argument."

"Is that when this happened?" Remus asked, brushing the purple and yellow bruise around Harry's left eye.

"No. I told you, that was an accident."

Remus nodded solemnly, looking nevertheless doubtful. An 'accident' had also trashed the kitchen. Harry had been sweeping up flour and shards of plates when Remus had arrived, while James had been passed out on the dining room table.

"I don't want to talk about that," Harry mumbled. Remus nodded and stroked Harry's fine black hair, which was just long enough to brush his shoulders. Lady poked her head out from the collar of Harry's shirt, and Remus stroked her head as well. She made fangs at him, and Remus hastily withdrew his hand.

"Don't, Lady," Harry admonished her. "He's my uncle."

"He'sss not your blood," the snake dismissed.

"How do you know?"

"The tongue of a ssserpent knows many things."

"Well," Remus said hesitantly, "I had wondered where you got the parseltongue from, but sometimes muggleborns are actually descendants of squibs who've forgotten their heritage."

Harry half-smiled. "I wondered too. I was surprised, but I quite like it. It's nice to be able to talk to someone."

Remus looked sad for a moment. "I'm sorry I can't tell you anything more, Harry. I don't know why she chose that name."

"You don't think maybe it _was_ after my father, after all?"

Remus considered. "Perhaps. I've never heard of anyone named that. I think it must be a muggle name. It sounds a little familiar, like something I read once. Perhaps it's from the Bible."

"What's that?"

"A muggle holy book. My mother was a muggleborn, and she used to read it aloud to me. Lots of muggles name their children from it. I can owl you a copy." He paused. "Harry…how has James been?"

Harry shrugged, staring morosely into his teacup. "I think he's having some trouble at work."

Remus sighed. "If you ever need anything, I'm only a firecall away. You know that, right?"

Harry nodded, stirring his spoon idly.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

_May 20, 1990_

_Dear Harry,_

_I checked some records at the Ministry of Magic, but apparently there's no record of any English witch or wizard named Azrael in the last century. So I asked a muggleborn friend (Ted Tonks) to investigate, and apparently he was able to find several dozen muggles with that name by searching genealogical records on the Internet (muggle interactive communication thingy). He also said the name's not from the Bible but it is a name for the Jewish and Muslim (those are muggle religions) Angel of Death. I don't remember your mum being religious, but I suppose there was a lot I didn't know about her._

_Your mum had a sister, Petunia Dursley, who lives in Surrey now. In fact I think you've got a cousin as well. Perhaps she would know? I've included her address if you want to write._

_Love,_

_Remus_

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

_May 25, 1990_

_Potter Cottage, Ottery St. Catchpole_

_Dear Mrs Petunia Dursley,_

_You don't know me, but I'm your nephew, Harry Potter. Your sister was my mum. I'm writing because I only just found out that you existed, and I wanted to get to know you and my cousin and also a bit about the family, like who my grandparents are and if they're still alive. Is it possible for us to meet? My Uncle said he'd be willing to apparate me to Surrey if you're amenable. I would really love that._

_Looking forward to meeting you,_

_Harry Azrael Potter_

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

_Potter. Stop writing us. Stop sending owls. We're a normal family and we don't want YOUR SORT about. If you come here I will call the police. My husband is prepared to shoot the next owl you send so __**STOP IT**__!_

_My so-called sister getting herself blown up was the best thing she ever did. You don't need to know anything about my family because she was adopted. (As if we would share your disgusting blood!) My parents found her on the doorstep of the church when she was a baby and passed her off as theirs. They had kinder hearts than she deserved and she repaid them horribly by turning out to be a freak._

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

_June 29, 1990_

_St. Mary the Virgin, Whinging Parish Church_

_Dear Mr Potter,_

_I was very moved by your letter, as I well remember who I believe is your grandmother. She came to services many times during a month-long period in 1961. I remember her because she made a deep impression on me during our many chats together. She was a very beautiful young lady, with long, wavy black hair, quite young—perhaps 18 or so. And she was very pregnant. She seemed troubled, and I took some of what she said to mean that she'd escaped some kind of cult. She wore strange clothing in the beginning and often used odd words I'd never heard. She confessed to me that she was hiding from her family and from the baby's father, who was a violent sort._

_She seemed to need someone to guide her and give her some hope, and I did the best I could although I was very young and inexperienced then—not yet a vicar. I hope I did her some good. She even asked me to run away with her, and I admit I was tempted, but in the end my duty was to the church. She had the baby at the church as she was afraid of hospitals, and the little girl was delivered by one of our nuns. A few days later, she and the baby disappeared, and I never heard anything about it ever again—until now. I do remember that the Evans family stopped attending our church right around that time, but I never knew why._

_I don't know what her real name was, but she called herself Electra Mavros¹. She was considering the name Maia² for her daughter the last time we spoke. I've included a photograph of her and the baby that was taken just after the child was born._

_I hope this is helpful to you, Mr Potter. I've waited a long time to find out what happened to that little girl. It seems you don't know if Electra is still alive, but if you do ever find out, please be sure to tell her that I still think of her and pray that she's safe._

_Sincerely,_

_Robert Caldwell_

_Vicar of Whinging_

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¹ Electra is the name of a star in the constellation Taurus and one of the Pleiades (Seven Sisters). Mavros means black/dark in Greek. Although Electra is also a figure with a dysfunctional family in the _Oresteia _trilogy, I was referring to the Pleiad. Wikipedia says: "… one of the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione. … She was raped by Zeus and gave birth to Dardanus, who became the founder of Troy…. According to one legend, she was the lost Pleiad, disappearing in grief after the destruction of Troy.'" Very appropriate, no?

² Star in the Pleiades cluster. Wikipedia: "In Greek mythology, Maia is one of the Pleiades and the mother of Hermes."

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Harry flipped frantically through his copy of _Nature's Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy_ until he reached the end of the Blacks. He had bought the book to answer his questions about his father's relatives, seeing as he'd been attacked with cutlery the last time he asked his father. There, on one of the last pages, was a photo of Electra Black, the daughter of Alphard Black with his cousin Lucretia.

According to the book, Electra had been conceived when her parents were both at Hogwarts. Alphard had raised her alone after Lucretia had washed her hands of the affair. As a consequence, he had dropped out of Hogwarts and never sat his O.W.L.s. Electra had supposedly disappeared when she was sixteen, and most believed she had been murdered by Rogerick¹ Lestrange, who she was having an affair with at the time. He had disappeared shortly afterward and was presumed dead.

Harry compared the photo of the grim and scowling girl in the book with the sweaty, messy-haired, smiling woman in the vicar's photo. They were the same person, he decided. Harry tucked the photo into the edge of his dresser mirror and smiled sadly. It seemed his grandmother's story was every bit as tragic as his mother's and his own. Harry felt certain Electra would have kept Lily if she could have. She had gone to such great lengths to bring her to safety. Surely that proved Lily was loved.

Harry wondered if his mother had known she was adopted. James had always been adamant that she was muggleborn. It was why he had fought for the Light. Would he have chosen differently if he'd known his wife was as pureblooded as himself?

Harry picked up the framed photograph he kept next to his bed, of his mother at eighteen, playing in a pile of fallen leaves and flirting with the camera, or the man behind it. He touched her face with one finger, and she seemed to reach her hand out to him.

"What would my life be like, if you'd been Maia Black instead of Lily Evans?" he whispered.

"Worssse," Lady hissed from her perch on his shoulder.

"Do you know sssomething, Lady?" Harry asked, startled.

"No," Lady answered. "But you can't live your life wissshing the past away."

"No," Harry agreed. "But it still makes me sssad."

"Then be sssad, hatchling, but don't regret anything. You're alive, and well enough. We ssshould all be so lucky."

Harry smiled wistfully, and put the genealogy book back on the shelf with his grandmother's photo closed inside.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

¹ German: famous spear, famous warrior.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

"Who do you write to all the time, boy?" James asked, slurring his words. "Hmm?"

"You do remember I take classes by mail, don't you?" Harry asked, eyeing his father warily. He loved his father, but—not when he was drunk. When he was drunk, James was a different person. He was no father, then.

"Pffff," James dismissed, and belched. "Classes are done for the year. You're writing to that Malfoy bitch, aren't you?"

"I only wrote to her once, to drop the class," Harry replied as calmly as he could. "I've been researching mum's family. Did you know she wasn't really a muggleborn? She was adopted."

James looked poleaxed for a moment, then sneered. "Don't feed me that tripe, boy. You think she wouldn't have known? If a ten-year-old could find out…"

Harry shrugged and speared a green bean while fingering the rabbit's foot in his pocket. It was a portkey Remus had made for him that would activate if he said the words 'escape pod', or if he was knocked unconscious. James hadn't been doing well for a number of months.

"You're too curious for your own good, that's what," James sneered. "And bloody morbid. You and that snake. Prob'ly be a Slytherin and disgrace your own father. Not that I'm really your father."

Harry's throat tightened. "I'm hoping to be in Ravenclaw, actually," he offered in a small voice, but James didn't seem to hear him.

"Fuck this slop," James said, shoving away the plate of food that Harry had prepared. "I'm going out."

"Dad, no," Harry called, rising and hurrying to his father's side. James went into the vestibule and fought the coat rack for his cloak, managing to rip a hole in it before he got it on. "Remember what happened last time?"

'Last time', James had started a fight in the Hog's Head Inn in Hogsmeade that had destroyed a thousand galleons worth of property and made the front page of the Prophet. _Auror Arrested After Drunken Brawl_, the headline had proclaimed, and James had been suspended for a month. They'd been counting knuts ever since. They'd even had the floo service cut off when there was no money for the bill.

"Don't tell me what to do, goddamn it! I'm your father!" James roared. Whether or not he was Harry's father at any given moment seemed to depend on his mood and what was most convenient for him. Harry clutched his father's cloak determinedly and tried to reel him back from the doorway.

"Dad, please! I-I'll tell Uncle Remus! I'll call the Aurors!"

"You little snake," James hissed, rounding on Harry and clutching him by the shirtfront. "How dare you! I put food over your head and a roof on your table." He looked confused for a second, then shook it off. "I didn't have to take you in—another man's child!"

Harry let go and jerked out of James' grasp. "Go, then," he muttered, looking down sullenly. "Go get yourself blown up like mum, too, for all I care."

A loud crack sounded, and Harry found himself falling into the coat rack. James had slapped him across the face.

"Don't talk about Lily like that!" James growled, and then he was gone, slamming the door behind him.

Harry sat for a while under a heap of coats, crying and holding his cheek, which was hot and tender. Then he got up, and slowly began to clear away dinner. He couldn't seem to remember how things had gotten so bad. James had always been a heavy drinker, with a foul mouth and a bitter outlook, but he'd never been so hateful before. Harry couldn't understand it. Nothing had changed—nothing important.

As he was cleaning up, Harry tried once again to reconcile the man who had held him and stroked his hair while Harry cried with the man who gave him black eyes and called him a snake. It would be easier if Harry could simply hate James, but every time the man sobered up and Harry saw his pale face, his shaky hands, his guilt-stricken eyes, he couldn't bring himself to hate his father.

Harry was the only one James had. James needed him.


	3. Crime and Punishment

o─-o─-o─-─-─-─** WITHOUT THORN THE ROSE **─-─-─-─o-─o-─o

Summary: When Lily died she left a broken James to raise a stranger's son. When a drunken act of violence sees James demoted to prison guard, Harry is inducted into the mysteries of Azkaban, and begins to solve the mysteries of his own existence, as well. SLASH. AH/AU. Some RL/SB, RL/JP, future LV/HP in sequels.

Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling. I do not own any rights to Harry Potter, but nor am I making any money off this. If anything I'm losing money…as well as sleep…sanity…

Warnings: SLASH. That means men. Having sex. With each other. Because I am unabashedly into that. I will post the graphic portions on another website with links given so that I can comply with the rules and regs here, but the slash is integral to the story. Although my intention is to have LV/HP, it will NOT happen in this story but rather in a future sequel. There is some RL/SB and slight RL/JP in this story. However this is not a romance but rather a family drama and character development piece. Romance may be included in future sequels.

Notes: This story is already completed. It has 16 chapters and 85k words. I am posting the first three chapters together to get you started, and will henceforth post a chapter once a week. I have written about 100k words of the first sequel and have planned out an eight-part series, but I am working full-time on a Ph.D. in mathematics so I don't have a ton of time to work on this. I definitely plan to finish the series, but it could take several years to do so.

o─-─-─-─-─ 3. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT ─-─-─-─-─o

Harry slept on the sofa that night so as to hear James when he came in, but he didn't wake until a rapid pounding on the front door startled him from a dream of flying without a broom. Glancing at the mantle clock, he saw that it was past noon. Harry stumbled to the door and drew it open, rubbing his eyes against the bright light. For a moment he couldn't make out the faces, only dark silhouettes against the light.

"All right there, lad?" a deep, gravelly bass voice asked.

"Dad?" Harry asked.

"He's at the Ministry, Harry," a familiar voice answered. It was Arthur Weasley, Harry realized as his eyes finally adjusted. "Can we come in?"

"Er," Harry hedged. "I'm not supposed to let people in when Dad's not home, but…well, I guess so."

"Thanks, lad," the bass said kindly, and Harry stood aside while the two men trooped inside.

"Well, Harry," Arthur said as he settled onto the sofa Harry had recently vacated.

"Can I get you some tea?" Harry inquired politely.

"No, thank you," the bass man answered. "I'm Kingsley Shacklebolt, by the way."

"Dad's boss," Harry said quietly. The man nodded.

"Yes. I brought Arthur along because you know him, although he's not with the Aurors. Speaking of that, you really shouldn't let strangers into your house, young man. There are still Death Eaters out there who were never captured."

"The wards will throw out anyone who tries to hurt me," Harry replied irritably. The man had wanted in and admitted to using someone else to get it, and now he chastised Harry for allowing it?

"It only takes one spell," Kingsley intoned solemnly.

Harry shrugged. "There's a confundus ward to keep anyone planning serious harm or kidnapping from even finding us."

"Harry," Arthur began, cutting Kingsley's diatribe off. "Please sit down and we'll get to the point."

Harry sank warily onto a squashy gold armchair.

"Kingsley?" Arthur asked. Shacklebolt grudgingly settled on the edge of the sofa next to Arthur.

"I don't know how to tell you this, Harry, so I'm just going to tell it straight out." Harry swallowed a sudden lump of fear in his throat. Had James been hurt? Killed? "Your dad was drinking in a bar in Diagon Alley last night, and he got into a fight with one of the other patrons. They traded spells, and, well, one of your dad's spells went wrong, and hurt the other man."

"I-is my dad okay?"

"He's fine," Shacklebolt answered in his gravelly bass. "But the other man isn't. He's dead."

Harry gasped. He could literally feel the blood draining from his face, leaving him cold and shaking. "Is—is my dad in trouble?"

"Yes."

"Is he going to Azkaban?"

Shacklebolt and Arthur exchanged a loaded glance. Shacklebolt answered. "We know from witnesses' reports that Auror Potter was provoked and acted in self-defence, but because he'd been drinking, a simple incarcerous spell that should only have restrained the man instead became a lethal garrotte that sliced open an artery."

Harry cringed, yet, somehow, though he felt no affinity for such an act, something deep inside him fluttered in excitement, even as he tried desperately to stamp it down.

"Normally, that kind of act would land a man in Azkaban for two years," Shacklebolt explained. His voice darkened as though he didn't approve of his next words. "However…strings have been pulled on your father's behalf. He'll only serve two weeks, and it'll be in the ministry holding cells rather than Azkaban."

Harry released a gust of breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

"I know this is a lot to take in, Harry"—Arthur broke off as Harry cut in.

"Who was it?"

"I'm sorry?" the ginger-haired man inquired with politely raised eyebrows.

"Who did he kill?"

Arthur frowned. "I'm afraid that information is held in confidence at the moment, per the family's wishes."

Harry read between the lines: _we're hushing this up, and we're not going to let a kid ruin it. _He scowled, but only slightly, since he understood the reasoning and the cover-up benefitted him.

"I know this is a lot to take in, Harry," Arthur continued, "but there are several things we need to do now. First of all, we need to find a place where you can stay until James can come home. I'm happy to offer my home, of course," he added hastily.

Harry nodded thoughtfully. "I'll stay with Uncle Remus," he said. "He said I'm welcome whenever."

"Remus Lupin?" Shacklebolt asked.

"Yes. He's dad's best friend and my godfather."

"Fine," Shacklebolt nodded. "Well, pack a suitcase, and we'll all floo over so I can have a word with him."

"Er," Harry stammered, flushing, "the floo's been—it's broken." Shacklebolt and Arthur exchanged another significant glance, and Harry knew that he hadn't fooled the two adults.

"I'll side-along you, then," Arthur offered, smiling wanly.

Shacklebolt grunted as he stomped the way to the front door. "I'll be outside."

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

After a fortnight that seemed to last a month, James returned in a cloud of green soot and sparks in the fireplace at Remus' house. He was garbed in black and white striped rags, and looked both thinner and grimmer than when Harry had last seen him. Harry saw him floo in from a vantage point in the hallway, and he promptly hid himself in the first likely spot—Remus' bedroom—so that he wouldn't be the first one who had to talk to James. When he was satisfied his father hadn't spotted him, Harry pressed his ear to the jamb to eavesdrop.

"Prongs," Remus said sadly. "You look like an escapee from Azkaban."

"Let me borrow some clothes, Moony," James begged. Their footsteps came towards the bedroom, and Harry quickly hid in the closet, crouched down amongst Remus' shoes, his head between two pairs of robes, and watched as the men came into the room. What had possessed him to hide rather than say hello, he wasn't sure, but the impulse was deep and powerful, and Harry never bothered fighting impulses such as that.

"Where's Harry?" James asked.

"He said he was going outside to play with his snake."

"That bloody thing. Wish I could bash its brains out."

Harry _had_ gone out and played with Lady, before coming back inside without Remus' knowledge.

"Here," Remus was saying. "Give me those rags so I can burn them. They stink." There was a pause during which James handed articles of clothing to Remus, who levitated and incinerated them. "Scourgify," Remus murmured, waving his wand over James' bare body with perhaps a touch more swish and flick than necessary, evidenced by James' flinching. "James, what on earth were you thinking?"

A spring squeaked as James stretched out on the bed with his arms over his face. "I wasn't thinking, Moony. He attacked me—I fought back. If I hadn't been drinking…" The sentence didn't need finishing.

"James…" Remus began, then sighed. "You have a son. Sometimes I feel like I look out for him more than you do."

"You don't know what it's like!" James snapped, then dropped into a quieter tone. "I thought I would die when I lost Lily. I've tried to live for Harry…I've tried to be a good man for his sake, but…it's hard. It's so hard. I miss Lily. I miss…" There was a snuffling sound, and in a very quiet voice that Harry had to lean closer to hear, James said, "I miss when Harry was a baby. He's so strange, now, Moony…I don't understand him anymore. He likes snakes better than people. Do you know, one day I saw him playing in the woods with a dead bird? A _dead bird_. I just wanted a break."

"James," Remus murmured. Harry, watching through the crack between the closet doors, saw Remus kneel and put his hand on James' shoulder. Harry's father was stretched out on Remus bed, face buried in Remus' pillow, completely naked. Remus stroked James' back and leaned his forehead against James' burly arm.

James rolled over, gazing solemnly at Remus, and held the man's hand tightly, placing it on his chest, the fingers over James' nipple.

"James…" Remus whispered, a strange look in his eye. "Don't."

"Please, Moony…I feel so lost. I need you." James sat up and drew Remus to sit on the bed between his legs. He held Remus' hand like it was a delicate bird, and kissed each finger, one by one, eyes locked on Remus. Harry, watching, felt deeply confused and more than a little embarrassed for his father.

James leaned forward as Remus drew back, and pressed a light kiss to Remus' cheek. He drew back, looked into Remus' eyes, which were glinting and somehow dangerous, and then kissed him again, and again, along his jaw and his neck. James reminded Harry of a devotee worshipping an idol, as Remus sat stock still and tolerated James' foolishness. Finally James circled in on Remus' mouth and pressed a long, chaste kiss there, eyes open to gauge Remus' response. Remus half-closed his own eyes and then pulled James away with a fist tightly clenched in the hair at the back of James' head.

"I'll hurt you," Remus warned, twisting James' head back so that his neck was displayed at an awkward angle.

Harry's eyes widened at the throaty growl in his uncle's voice. He had known the man was a werewolf, but he had always been gentle with Harry. Never before had Harry heard or seen the wolf in Remus.

"Is that what you want?" Remus asked sneeringly, nipping at James' throat.

"Yes," James gasped. "Please, Moony. I want you to make me forget, everything…make me forget Lily…make me forget Harry…"

"Get on your knees," Remus commanded. James' eyes widened slightly.

Harry knew he should leave, he shouldn't watch this, his father would be furious, and Harry would probably be scarred for life by watching, but…he could not look away. And how could he leave when he would be revealing what he'd already seen?

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

[ cut scene - see my profile for link ]

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

When it was over, Remus pulled out and collapsed beside James, both of them panting more and more slowly, until, finally, Remus began to snore lightly. Then James got up, wincing, and limped into the bathroom. Semen ran down his legs.

When James had closed the door and started the shower, Harry stole out of the closet and made his escape.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

The next day, when James was only limping a little, they ate breakfast together at Remus' table. James had slept in Remus' room, while Harry slept in the guest bedroom, and they had both been woken by the smell of frying food. The werewolf served up bacon and scrambled eggs on chipped, mismatched plates, and told Harry he needed to put some meat on his bones.

Harry stared at Remus' gentle smile and remembered him growling the word _whore_. Harry smiled back, and blushed. Remus looked perplexed but seemed to dismiss it.

"I have to tell you both something," James announced flatly as Remus set the food on the table. James stared at his food, seemingly afraid to meet anyone's eyes.

"What is it?" Remus asked softly."

"I'm being reassigned at work."

"Where?"

James swallowed. "Azkaban."

Remus' hand slipped a little as he set a plate in front of his friend, and James' hand shot out to steady it. Remus sat down slowly, eyes on his hands, which he steepled in front of him. After a long moment during which the silence seemed to stretch as taut as piano wire between then, Remus spoke in a flat voice.

"How long?"

"Five years," James answered gravely.

"No," Remus snapped. "What I _mean_ is how long have you known this?"

James' eyes flicked to meet Remus', but the werewolf was still looking only at his hands. "I found out yesterday."

"Yesterday. Was this _before _or _after_ you begged me to"—Remus broke off, glancing at Harry in irritation for the first time ever that the boy could remember.

Harry looked sheepish. "Oh, just say it. I already know."

"You do?" James demanded quickly. "How?"

"For Merlin's sake, Dad, it wasn't exactly Unspeakable. You didn't even put up a silencing ward!"

Suddenly Remus and James were both blushing brightly and looking anywhere but at each other. Remus regained control first. "So you heard—I mean, that is, Harry, er, sometimes, things said, in the heat of the moment…are just meant…well, as a kind of, um, game—like playing pretend—and…"

Harry stared at his uncle in amazed fascination. He had never seen Remus so flustered. _Hiding in plain sight_, Harry thought. _He's the lamb by day and the wolf by night. _For some reason, this notion excited him. He couldn't get the sight of Remus' stiff cock sinking into James' slick hole out of his head. He knew that was wrong, somehow, but the scene just kept replaying in his head, like a pair of omnioculars stuck on repeat.

"It's fine," Harry replied, shrugging. "I've read much worse stuff." This was not true. He enjoyed reading novels intended for adults, and had more than once come across references to sex, but never a graphic description of the act.

"Well, that's—wait, _what_?" James demanded. "What kind of smut"—he broke off, realizing that he would only tar himself, and huffed a frustrated sigh. "Look, never mind that. What your uncle is trying to say is that, well, all men of a certain age have certain needs, and sometimes, they get pent up and just need to let off a little steam. Er, kinky steam." James cleared his throat and nodded firmly. Then blushed again.

Remus was looking frosty and dangerous again. "A _little _steam?" James looked confused. "A little_ steam?_" Remus growled under his breath something unintelligible.

James' eyes widened. "Er, Moony, I…" He looked sideways at his son. "Harry, could you maybe give us a few minutes?"

Harry was about to make himself scarce and then eavesdrop, but Remus stopped him.

"No," Remus snapped, gesturing Harry to remain seated. The werewolf drew a slow breath and visibly settled himself. "No, we'll…discuss that later. Harry needs to hear about Azkaban. The needs of a child are far more important than the pride of an old man." He levelled a dark, boring gaze at James, who winced.

"Right," James began uncertainly. "Well, I was offered a choice between two years in a cell or five years guarding them. So. It could be worse. They've even made me a Captain. I'll have my own house. And Harry can come with me."

"James," Remus pointed out in a biting tone. "You can't take a child there."

James set his jaw. "Why not? Chief Warden Oakes has three daughters and they all live there."

"James, it's _Azkaban_. Being sent there is a punishment. A punishment which _Harry _doesn't deserve." Remus' tone cleared indicated that James _did _deserve such a punishment.

James ground his teeth. "Remus, you know the Wizarding Family Code as well as I do. If I don't reside with him for three out of every four days of the year, I risk being declared an unfit guardian."

"You _will_ be unfit if you force a child to live in that gods-forsaken pit of Hell!"

James slapped his hands flat on the table. He met Remus' gaze with a look as hard and sharp as a knife. "I will die before I see my son in the hands of Lucius Malfoy."

Remus looked suddenly confused.

"My cousin—Narcissa. Surely you remember her?"

"She's not your closest relative. Don't you have an aunt? Anyway, Andy's older than Narcissa," Remus argued. "The guardianship would go to her first."

"Lucius Malfoy would cow the others into standing down. As far as Andy is concerned, the petitioning family has to prove financial stability. Andy was disinherited. She makes knuts. Between that and Ted's injury flaring up god-knows-when, I'm not even sure they _could_ support Harry, let alone prove it to a court packed with Lucius' cronies."

Remus seemed to deflate. He sank back in his chair, shoulders slumped, and frowned morosely at his plate full of congealing food. "You're right. But I want those fourth days, James. Every one."

James nodded. "Of course." He glanced apologetically at Harry. "Harry, lad…son…I'm sorry. Can you forgive me for doing this to you?"

Harry was startled to be called on in the midst of such an adult conversation, and blinked several times before answering. "Forgive you for what?" he asked, genuinely wondering.

"For dragging you away to a—what was it? A godforsaken hell-hole? I swear it's not so bad, really. There are a few other officers' children, and the island is actually quite pretty. Chief Warden Oakes showed me pictures. It looks just like the Shetland Islands. Very green and misty."

Harry shrugged. "I don't think you need forgiving for wanting to be my guardian."

James sighed in irritation. "No, I mean…do I have to spell it out?" He stood up abruptly, raking his fingers violently through his already wild hair, to stand looking out the window as though there were something he had to see out there.

Harry glanced up from under furrowed brows at Remus, who grimaced sympathetically. Harry felt a sudden surge of kinship with the werewolf. They had both been wronged by James' selfishness; both wanted to be just as selfish in return; both would probably forgive him; and both would quietly feel disgusted with themselves for doing so.

"I…said some things I didn't mean," James began, his voice indicating he wasn't enjoying himself. "We both did," he added, quick to remember Harry's offense.

"I meant mine," Harry muttered.

"You did?" James asked quietly, his voice strangely hurt, and Harry's anger peaked suddenly. It was so unfair, the way his father could say the most cruel and hateful things without hesitating, and yet have the gall to think himself a victim when the tables were turned.

"Yes!" Harry shouted, tensing tighter than a wound spring. Sudden frost crystallized over the forgotten breakfast. "If you want to go around calling me a snake, and pushing me into coat racks, and cutting other people's heads off because you're drunk, and being a SLUT before you even say hello to me—then you can go and get yourself BLOWN UP JUST LIKE MUM!"

With that, Harry shoved off from the table and ran at the top of his speed from the house, disappearing into the thickest of the woods before anyone could catch him—not that anyone was trying. They were too stunned, he could tell. He could sense souls, see them as it were, all the time now, even when he wasn't trying. James and Remus were sitting stock still where he had left them, though both their souls were aflutter with agitation. They wouldn't stay frozen forever, though, and Harry wanted a head start.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Back at the breakfast table, Remus finally stirred to say: "It was true what I said. You've been very bad and you deserve to be punished."

James tried to put his hand over Remus', but Remus withdrew it before he could, crossing his arms over his chest and frowning at the floor sorrowfully.

"Don't you ever just…get lonely, Moony?"

Remus closed his eyes, face twisting, and hissed, "Of course I do. You proved that. I'm only human—or less than it, rather."

"Don't tell me you're still waiting for—_him_."

Remus twitched. "No. No, but…ah, I can't explain. You wouldn't understand."

"Tell me. Moony."

Remus answered slowly, picking each word carefully as though sounding his way through an unfamiliar melody. "It's as though…I've eaten ambrosia…and now all mortal fruit, no matter how tender and ripe, tastes like ashes by comparison."

James was quiet a moment. "But…a man has to eat. And if you just keep at it, you'll forget what the—ambrosia—tasted like. And…other fruit," he tilted his head to refer to himself, "will start to taste sweet again."

"That's just it," Remus answering, lifting his gaze to meet James'. "I don't want to forget it. Sometimes I lie awake at night, terrified I've forgotten just—the exact colour his eyes were, what his voice sounded like, the things he used to whisper in my ear…I put the memories in my pensieve and become paranoid that they've changed since the last time I viewed them." Remus sat forward and put his hand on the table again. "Do you think memories can change, James? Do you think, if I ever met him again, that I'd still know him? Do you think he would still call me Moony…?"

James' brows drew together. "Moony…you can't _live_ like this…"

Remus withdrew again, shutting his friend out. "I'd rather die in a dream than live in Hell."

"You need help, Moony. Let me help you."

Remus looked at James incredulously. "Help me? You? You can't even help yourself. I should have cheered at what Harry said to you. I don't know what I was _thinking_ yesterday."

"Don't," James pleaded, eyes filling with tears. "Don't. Not you."

Remus gazed stonily at his sometime friend. "When you said you wanted to die after Lily did, I understood that. In fact, that's the only reason I've forgiven you as much as I have. But when you lay a hand on Harry, I can't forgive that. I can't understand that."

James' tears spilled over, and glistening tracks spilled down his cheeks. He buried his face in his arms and clutched as his hair as if he would pull it out by the fistful. He let out a great bestial cry that was faintly muffled by his shirtsleeves, and then shook with sobs. It had always been his way, Remus remembered with sudden clarity, to bottle everything up until with a great explosion, great violence and great angst, it all came pouring back out at once.

Remus closed his eyes, closing the lid on his own box of memories, and crossed the kitchen to take his friend in his arms. He stroked James' hair, rocking him and rubbing circles on his back.

_You don't deserve the luxury of crying_, Remus wanted to say. But he remembered sleepless nights when he'd shut himself away from the world, shut out friends and loved ones, lashed out at helping hands, wanting only to be alone with his ghost. And so, instead, he said,

"You can't help how you feel, James. But you can help what you _do_ about it. So cry as much as you want, but when you're done crying, go throw yourself on your knees and beg for your son's forgiveness. Before it's too late."

"Will you—will you help me?" James pleaded, raising a reddened and tear-stained face.

"I can't be his father _for_ you, Prongs," Remus whispered, cupping James' face. "The gods know I've tried. But I know you love him. I know, for all his strangeness, you see Lily in him—just as I do. And you remember what she said about love?"

James smiled tremulously. "'Love isn't something you feel, it's something you do.'" She had shouted those words at James once, during a very public fight at Hogwarts. He looked down, ashamed, then back up. "I'm so afraid. What if I fail?"

Remus chuckled bitterly. "You've already failed, Prongs. How could you possibly get any worse?"

James stared, then laughed, at first quietly, then loudly, then almost hysterically, until Remus pressed his friend to his chest and held him tight, soothing him with gentle words. At last, when James had quieted, Remus said,

"James, your son is probably crying just like you are right now. And he doesn't have anyone to hold him."

James took a deep breath, nodded, and stood shakily. Then, sudden as lightning, he took Remus' face in his hands and kissed him, chastely, on the mouth. "I know I can't be _him_, and God knows no one could ever replace Lily, but—even if we have to eat ashes, at least we could eat them together. Promise me you'll just…just let me in sometimes?"

Remus felt as emotionally wrung out as an old dishcloth, so he simply nodded and sank into a chair. "Go, James," he exhorted.

James went.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Harry ran, and ran, and ran. Around him, trees cracked with thundering _booms_ as their sap froze solid and expanded. Birds dropped from the sky. The hearts of mice froze in mid-beat.

At last his legs gave out beneath him, and Harry collapsed to the forest floor. Somehow his luck had managed to carry him to a small clearing carpeted with moss, and so he was cushioned by cool green verdure when he stretched out, panting, on the ground.

After a time of catching his breath, during which the world seem to swim around him, and the ground seemed to tilt dizzyingly, Harry rolled onto his back and stared up towards the sky. The weather was always cool at Remus', but the sun shone brightly through the canopies of green above him. Harry watched the leaves sway, and let the bird song, the whisper of the wind in the trees, the tinkle of the stream in the distance, and the deep, dense scent of the forest overwhelm his senses.

_Green light_, he thought. _I floated in green light. _He could almost feel the sensation of that treasured memory, the swaying, as of being in a sea, the certainty that he was a part of everything that surrounded him, and that he would soon dissolve into that gentle current, that soothing sway. He had always held onto that memory, as a touchstone to calm himself when he wanted to burst; as a common thread about which all other memories were woven; as a wish to someday feel that free and serene again. Now he once again let that feeling carry him away for a moment.

Suddenly Harry's eyes snapped wide open. "Green light!" he exclaimed. "_Green_—like Avada Kedavra." James had once mentioned seeing a flash of green from where he lay frozen in the stairwell when Lily was killed. Harry's mind lit up with a dozen ideas at once. "It was real," was the chief one, followed by, "My soul was knocked out" then "I almost dissolved!" and "Where would I have gone?"

Finally, from somewhere so deep inside that Harry scarcely recognized his own voice, sounded the idea, faintly, "I wish I had dissolved. Then I would be free."


	4. A Blessing and a Curse

o─-o─-o─-─-─-─** WITHOUT THORN THE ROSE **─-─-─-─o-─o-─o

Summary: When Lily died she left a broken James to raise a stranger's son. When a drunken act of violence sees James demoted to prison guard, Harry is inducted into the mysteries of Azkaban, and begins to solve the mysteries of his own existence, as well. SLASH. AH/AU. Some RL/SB, RL/JP, future LV/HP in sequels.

Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling.

Warnings: SLASH. That means men. Having sex. With each other.

Notes: Thanks so much for all of you guys' reviews, favorites, and follows. Also, I am not British, so if there are any Americanisms or any of the British usages sound strange, please let me know. I did try, but you never know. It kind of made me want to write some software to automatically British-ize things. Do you guys think there's a market for that? This chapter introduces more of the mythos I have added to Rowling's world. I tried to keep it short since I often find that sort of thing boring in other people's stories. I'm pretty sure I at least have a unique take on Merlin and the whole muggle/wizard dichotomy.

o─-─-─-─-─ 4. A BLESSING AND A CURSE ─-─-─-─-─o

Harry slept without realizing, carried away on a tide of reckless thoughts, and when he woke, it was dark. There was a new moon, and some clouds seemed to have covered the stars. With no human habitations nearby, the dark was as absolute as in a cavern beneath the ground.

The wind had acquired an arctic nip, but Harry didn't shiver. The cold to him was what the warm embrace of a mother was to others. He stretched luxuriantly, then rose, testing his muscles. Harry felt re-energized from his nap. He could have walked all night, but he couldn't see his hand before his face, he had no idea where he was, and, most of all, he wasn't ready to go home.

So Harry sat with his back against a massive tree, and thought. First, he thought of what he'd like to say to his father. Spiteful things: "I hate you for making me cry over a jerk like you." Plaintive things: "Why can't you just be nice to me?" Childish things: "I wish mum was alive. I wish I'd been a Black and not a Potter." Shameful things: "I'm sorry I'm not the way you wanted."

After a time, Harry's mind turned to the idea of Azkaban. In truth, he was excited by the idea of the island. He had always been drawn to the dark, the desolate, the depressing, and Azkaban was the quintessence of these. Perhaps, there, he might find answers.

Then Harry began to imagine how James' mistake had unfolded. In Harry's mind, it was a Death Eater, one of those who had pleaded Imperius or betrayed the names of others, who approached his father. James was sitting at the bar working out how to apologize to Harry and wishing Lily were there to help him, when the Death Eater cursed James from behind. James, acting on instinct born of years of being an Auror, turned and cast without thinking. His face blanched in horror as the man died before James could even suspend life functions.

Then the side of Harry that had been pushed down too many times eclipsed his more forgiving side, and Harry imagined it differently. The man was an innocent. It was someone James had known in school, one of those James still mocked, and James drunkenly crashed into the man on purpose, making it look like an accident. James pulled his wand and threatened the fellow, all the while mocking him viciously, and the poor man, driven to rage by the memories of childish slights, cast a minor hex. James cast a binding spell, smiling as he put all his strength into it, and blood gushed from the man's throat. James looked vaguely annoyed as he realized he'd cut the man's head nearly off instead of just strangling him like he'd intended.

Harry tilted his head forward, then drove it back into the tree with a _thok_. In truth, he didn't really care whether the man had deserved to die. He wasn't real to Harry. And, after all, he wasn't truly gone. He was still out there, somewhere, swaying with the waves, blowing in the breeze. Harry wondered if the man would forgive his killer. Surely death must seem a small thing from such a place of peace. Or was that floating sensation that had so comforted Harry as antithetical to some as the icy cold that Harry revelled in?

Harry sighed. He wondered if James and Remus were looking for him even now. There were spells to locate blood relatives, but what with the protective wards on Harry and the lack of a physical link, they wouldn't have any magical means of locating him. Perhaps Lady could lead them to Harry.

Harry opened his senses fully to dark around him, focusing for any hint of light, but all he could see was the field of scattered stars that was the forest animals. One light that was larger than the others moved steadily closer. It was James, Harry was certain. He recognized the characteristic pulse and colours of the man's soul. How could he know where Harry was?

It wasn't until James' wand cast light into the little clearing that Harry understood. He was surrounded by splintered and exploded trees that had led James straight to him.

Harry stared expressionlessly at his father staring back at him. There was a fraught silence, and finally James broke it.

"Harry. I'm sorry. I've cocked it all up. I'm a shite father. I know it."

Harry scowled and looked away.

"But I'm going to change. I'm going to do better. So, will you come back to the house?"

"Prove it," Harry said.

"I'm sorry?"

"_Prove_ it. Prove you're going to change."

James looked flummoxed for a moment, but then his expression cleared.

"Right. As soon as we get back, I'll ask Remus to be our witness for the Unbreakable Vow. I'll make a vow to never voluntarily drink alcohol again. Will that do for a start?"

Harry blinked, startled by the steel in his father's voice and the magnitude of what he was offering. He half-smiled, but then frowned suddenly. James' expression fell.

"Better leave a loophole so you can drink champagne at celebrations. But only one glass, mind."

James grinned, and for just a moment he looked young again.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

First they flooed to Hogsmeade, then to Aberdeen, and finally Underhoull in the Shetlands, where they just missed the boat as it cast off from the dock. James, flustered, apparated Harry on board but managed to arrive about a foot above deck, so that they both tumbled in a heap to the wooden deck.

Then, suddenly, a dire-looking man with a patch over one eye and a scar that split his face near in half loomed above them. His wild blonde hair could have given James' a run for its money, and Harry had never seen such heavy, brooding eyebrows, like thunderclouds.

"Er, hello," James offered, helping Harry up.

"Dad, the luggage," Harry muttered.

"Shit," James cursed, and disappeared with a crack. A moment later there was a crack from within the hold of the boat, and then a loud series of bangs and thumps. The dire man scowled ferociously and dashed down the short series of steps into the hold, whence issued a loud argument. When the two men finally emerged, James looked chagrined and the dire man looked murderous.

"Er, is anyone steering the boat?" James asked nervously.

"Boat steer self," the dire man proclaimed in a threatening tone. "First mate take watch."

"Er, right. You're the captain, then? I'm a captain as well, you know. Captain of the Wizenwatch, that is."

The dire man sneered impressively at James and turned around to watch the waves they were cutting through. The boat moved at a rather speedy clip, and the water seemed calm enough. Harry sat down and put on his fur-lined cloak. It had been rather temperate out when they had left Ottery St. Catchpole, but they were a good deal farther north now, even if it was summer, and there was a steady breeze from the west, where the sun was dipping toward the horizon. He didn't need the cloak, of course, but he was accustomed to pretending.

"We pass apparition barrier," the dire man said after twenty minutes or so of silence in which James had put on his cloak as well and snuggled close to Harry for added heat. The dire man seemed to think the weather quite fair, as he stood in shirtsleeves, displaying sun-bronzed and weather-hardened skin proudly.

"Almost there, then," James remarked.

The better part of an hour had passed before James nudged Harry to stand, and Harry looked away from the sunset toward his first sight of Azkaban.

The island was a gently sloping plateau set upon cliffs of stone battered by the indigo sea. It was shrouded with fog that seemed to glow with the ochre light of sunset, and blanketed by meadows of green grass, dotted here and there with yellow and purple flowers.¹ At the far end of the island, the land swept steeply upward and disappeared into the mist, and from that cloud rose a great crooked tower of black stone.² To Harry the tower seemed a dark crown upon a verdant head. He felt something deep inside him respond to the sight.

"Look!" James cried, clutching Harry's arm and spoiling the moment. He pointed into the dark waters off the boat's prow, where a whale's tail, barnacle-encrusted and strangely scarred, had appeared. As they moved closer to the island, the whale kept pace, surfacing and blowing. "Do you often see them?" James asked the dire man.

The man sniffed. "Whale make good dinner. Good oil."

James looked disgusted, but said nothing.

Eventually they drew close enough to the island to hear the waves breaking against the cliffs, and the boat docked at an artificial cove constructed of gravel. There James and Harry disembarked, lugging their bags.

"Thank you!" Harry called to the dire man. "What's your name?"

"Halvard," the dire man answered in an uncertain tone, and though he weren't accustomed to speaking with children.

"Halvard what?"

"Bjørn Halvard³," the man grumbled.

"When do you come back, Mr Halvard?"

"Thursdays, unless I'm transporting someone."

"I'll see you in a couple days, then," Harry said, and waved. The dire man looked vaguely alarmed.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

¹ If you care to know what I'm modelling the island after, go and have a look at the Faroe Islands on Google Earth.

² As for the prison itself, I couldn't find anything satisfying for a model, real or fake, so for now I'm working from various imaginings of Dracula's castle.

³ Norse/Norwegian/Swedish: Bjorn = "bear"; Old Norse: Halvard = "guardian of the rock"

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

On the gravel beach, James was waiting with Harry's luggage. He looked grim, as though the realization of his exile had finally sunk in.

"It's not forever," Harry offered, trying to comfort the man. James straightened and forced a false smile onto his face.

"I know. And you'll have lots of breaks. Every fourth week."

"How does the Ministry know who I'm with, anyway?" Harry grumbled as they ascended a rickety wooden staircase that had been scoured smooth by the wind and the spray. They would have to walk to the wizenguards' village since all magical forms of transport were disabled on Azkaban.

"They don't unless they've been using dark magic—not that I would put it past them. And normally they wouldn't even give a damn," James explained. "But in your case there are people who would quite literally kill to get their hands on you, and I can't risk anyone realizing that you're not with me. The other wizenguards would know, for one."

"And since this place is cluttered up with burn outs and wash ups, they'd probably sell the information in a heartbeat," Harry concluded.

Ahead of him on the narrow stairs, James paused for just a moment as though he wanted to protest this assessment. But then his shoulders drooped, and he trudged on.

"I didn't mean you," Harry muttered uncomfortably.

"No," James sighed. "It's true enough. I am a wash up."

"But you're getting better," Harry said. On a sudden impulse, he skipped ahead to check his father's face. When he saw James' morose look, he slipped his hand into his father's and squeezed it.

James smiled. "You're a good son, Harry. I'm sorry I ever made you think otherwise."

"I never thought otherwise," Harry replied cheerfully, withdrawing his hand.

James laughed at the hidden barb. "Just like your mum, you little cheeker."

Harry's smile faded slightly. It was a good time to ask, he thought. It felt as though things were about to change, and this might be his last real chance. As they reached the top of the step and began to walk along a path that was only a single track worn through the grass and into the dirt, he gathered his nerve.

"Dad…do you know who my real father is?"

James sobered instantly. "No, Harry. Your mum wouldn't tell me that." He was quiet a moment, and Harry waited on tenterhooks, sensing that more was forthcoming. "But…I suppose you're old to enough to hear the story now. Now, to start with, you've got to know that your mum was an Unspeakable."

Harry inhaled sharply and his eyes glittered voraciously. "My mum was?" he breathed. He'd always pictured her studying at an Academy after Hogwarts.

"Yes. She was brilliant, Lily was. The top of our class. You get your cleverness from her. And she had a passion for finding out how magic works. I think coming from a muggle background gave her a unique perspective on it. To us purebloods, it's just so normal that we hardly think to question anything. So, she applied, and she got in, right out of Hogwarts. She beat wizards who'd studied and applied for years—decades, some of them. I was so proud of her. She worked in the Department of Mysteries for three years before she quit to take care of you full time."

They walked a few paces in silence.

"I don't know what she worked on," James continued, his tone grave. "I can guess what she would have been interested in, though, if she had her pick. She always wanted to know why some muggles produce wizard children. She thought if she could understand that, she could stop the prejudice against muggleborns. She was passionate about it. I was, too." He shook his head sorrowfully. "We were a couple of starry-eyed kids."

Harry silently agreed.

"I don't know how, and I don't know who, but one day, something—happened. Something went wrong. And, somehow, my Lily was—raped." James drew a deep breath, and exhaled slowly. "She swore it was an accident, a magical accident, and that no one was to blame. Experimental potions trial gone wrong, or something of that sort, I suppose. She wouldn't tell me who it was, though. I guess she knew I'd kill the bloke even though it wasn't his fault." He was silent a moment. "She hinted, several times, that she was researching something that would shock the wizarding world, something that would overthrow all our beliefs. I've wondered if, perhaps, she ran afoul of someone who wanted what she knew to remain unknown. But that's just my speculation. I always want to blame someone, I suppose."

Harry let his eyes roam over the wild and barren landscape, thinking. "Isn't there a potion—a spell—something that could tell us? Surely the goblins have some way to check bloodlines?"

"I'm afraid the goblins don't care all that much about the affairs of wizards, Harry. There are spells on Gringotts vaults and keys to prevent unauthorized persons from entering, but authorization is passed on by the action of the currently designated vault owner. That's why families can disown children simply for acting out of line. If my father had decided to give the Potter signet ring and vault key to our house elf, Tibby, then Tibby would have inherited instead of me, and there'd be nothing I could do about it."

"But surely there's some system, for when people die without having passed their things on."

"Yes," James agreed, "there is. The goblins appropriate everything inside Gringotts, and the Ministry everything outside of it."

"What?! Those greedy—are you serious?"

James chuckled darkly. "You need to get your nose out of those smutty novels and into some books of law. Some of the things our Ministry gets up to would curl even _your_ hair." He reached over and tugged a lock of Harry's dead straight hair gently. "Fortunately most old families have some kind of family charter that acts like a default will, just in case."

Harry ducked his head bashfully. His hair had grown out past his shoulders, and his fringe was down to his chin. He liked to hide behind his glossy black tresses and watch people as if through a veil, though he'd been told by other children that it made him look a fool.

Just then, Lady poked her head out of Harry's shirt and tasted the air. "Are we there yet?" she questioned sleepily. Harry had forgotten she was there.

"Almossst," he answered, stroking her head.

"Harry," James warned. "You've got to promise me something."

Harry set his jaw and glared stonily at the ground. "I'm not giving up Lady."

"I'm not asking you to. But you mustn't speak Parseltongue where anyone can hear."

"I don't _care_ what people think," Harry snapped.

"Foolisssh hatchling," Lady hissed. "Listen to your father. He knows the waysss of men better than you."

Harry scowled.

"Oh? And if they start to think that maybe you've got some other blood than Potter or muggle running in your veins? What then?"

"Uncle Remus said sometimes muggleborns are descended from squibs that have forgotten where they came from."

James scoffed. "Harry, Lily's family were the most mugglish muggles I've ever had the misfortune to meet."

"So? Perhaps they doth protest too much."

James frowned. "Harry, did they teach you history at that day school?"

"Er—some."

"Do you know about Merlin?"

"Of course. He was King Arthur's advisor. He was half-incubus, a metamorphmagus, _and_ an animagus, so he could shift into any form—human, animal, or magical creature. He established the first magical communities of Britain."

"That's a rather sanitized version, but true enough. But do you know what his greatest magical achievement was? What he really made his name with?"

Harry thought. "I guess not. I thought he was mainly a political figure."

"Oh, he was. He was a visionary. And one of his visions was to separate muggles from wizards. Before the Arthurian Era, wizards and muggles lived side-by-side, and muggles knew about magic. It was Merlin who first called for a separation."

"I thought that happened after the witch trials, in the Middle Ages. That's when the statute of secrecy was established."

"Yes, that's when we truly went underground. But what Merlin wanted wasn't so much for wizards to _hide_, but for them to gather together. He thought that with our people so spread out, only one or two in each town, that wizards would never truly advance. He believed we needed to establish towns, cities, even entire nations of wizards. And he believed that if we stopped mixing our blood with the muggles, we would become more powerful."

"So he established the pureblood doctrine?" Harry asked, astonished.

"Yes. In Britain, at any rate. But his ideas weren't very popular, back then. Most people don't want to leave places where they've always lived, and telling people who to marry is never a well-received proposition. So he came up with an idea that would force wizards to separate from muggles. He poisoned the muggles. He gave them a potion that altered their minds, and the minds of all their descendants, so that they couldn't see magic. They simply wouldn't notice it, and if they were forced to focus on it, they would try to dismiss it as mere trickery or sleight of hand."

"He couldn't possibly have poisoned every single person in Britain," Harry protested.

"Ah," James answered, smiling wryly. "But that's where history comes in again. What was going on with the muggles at the time of Merlin?"

"Well," Harry began, thinking. "The Romans ruled before Arthur threw them out."

James snorted. "Not too difficult to defeat an enemy that's half-rotted from within, but true enough. But what about the common people?"

Harry frowned. "I don't know."

"They began to forget the old gods, son. They became Christian."

Harry's eyes lit up. "Christians eat the body and drink the blood of their god."

"Not literally, but, yes, they drink a certain kind of alcohol that symbolizes the Christ. Into this alcohol, Merlin slipped his potion. Of course, it wasn't a terribly quick process. But, one church at a time, muggles began to forget about magic. And, as the generations passed and muggles intermarried, the infection, as it were, spread, until, now, the only muggles who know about magic are those who've been told about it by their wizard children. And, often, they don't truly believe in it, but simply think their children to be deluded, superstitious types."

James and Harry were nearing the village where the wizenguards lived, now. The entire island was only three miles long and one mile wide. The village was a cluster of weather-beaten grey and brown shacks, with stone chimneys that puffed trails of smoke into the mist that hovered above. There were no streets, but rather foot-paths worn into the dirt, and the deepest and muddiest of these led to the massive black tower whose feet the shacks crouched at.

"Lily's family, Harry, were no squibs. The blood of wizards counteracts Merlin's poison, so a squib can see magic. That's how the muggles got their legends of strange creatures and powers. A squib saw something no one else could see. Often, it was squibs who were burned and hanged as witches. They knew enough to be thought odd and different, but they didn't have the power to defend themselves."

"Was it the poison—that made muggles hate us?" Harry asked.

"I think so," James answered contemplatively. "Before, we were vital to the life of a village. We cured the ailments, delivered the babies, and foretold the future. We made judgments when there were disputes, and we performed rituals of marriage and burial. They called us Druids, here in Britain. In other places, we went by the name of priest or shaman. Magic wasn't so complex then that wizards needed formal training. We were self-taught, or we were apprenticed to another wizard. We didn't use wands or Latin incantations. We had staves and stones and runes. Or we simply willed the magic into being. Potions formulas were carefully guarded secrets passed down by word of mouth from master to apprentice.

"We knew less then, but what we did know had more meaning. We didn't have spells for turning legs to jelly or making giant bogeys flap around like bats. We considered our magic sacred, to be used only for the good of the people and the land. I don't say we were saints, of course. There were evil wizards and witches, to be sure, who sought power and violence. But most of us lived in harmony with the muggles and the land.

"After Merlin's poison spread across the land, the muggles didn't want us anymore. To them, we were fools, madmen, and idiots. If we insisted otherwise, then we were devil-worshippers to be driven off with spears and fire. We couldn't live among them, so we came together. We founded a city called Avalon. But trying to bring together an entire people who come from hundreds of different ways and places wasn't easy. Some hailed Merlin as a hero, but others despised him.

"In the end, it was Morgan le Fay who defeated Merlin. She found the farthest, coldest, most desolate island that she could, and dug a hole deep in the earth, far below the level of the sea. There, she imprisoned Merlin in a cave of crystal, and sealed him in to slowly die. Some believe he may yet live in that buried prison, kept alive by his creature blood, or by some strange magic."

"The island…" Harry asked, entranced by the incredible and epic tale. "It's Azkaban, isn't it?"

"Yes, Harry. After Morgan died, her nephew, Mordred, took possession of the island, and built himself a fortress upon it. He wanted to establish a magical settlement here, for dark wizards, to rival Avalon, but he was ultimately defeated by Nimue, the Lady of the Lake, and he was the first to be imprisoned there, in the highest tower. In time, other wizards were bound here as well."

"Just like Grindelwald," Harry murmured.

"Light wizards are rather known for imprisoning their enemies rather than killing them," James explained, sounding as though he did not necessarily approve of this policy. "There were many wars, after that, and ultimately a more democratic government was established. But the history of wizardry in Britain since Merlin has really been a history of our relationship with the muggles. You have to understand that before you can understand anything about wizarding politics. Politicians and powerful figures define themselves by their beliefs about muggles and how we should interact with them. For better or worse, Merlin forced us to separate ourselves. He made us great, but he also made us strangers in our own lands. That's why the name of Merlin is used as both a benediction and a curse.

"Harry, do you understand why I'm telling you this? Lily's family were no squibs. They were muggles through and through, and that makes you the son of a muggleborn. If people found out you had an inherited talent like Parseltongue, they would know that I wasn't your father. Harry—tell me you understand what I'm saying. They could take you away from me."

Harry nodded, dazed. His head was spinning with visions of medieval villages, Druids in sacred groves, Avalon rising from the holy lake, and Merlin tipping poison into chalices. He shook his head to clear it and tried to focus on the issue at hand.

"Dad," he said quietly. "I have to tell you something about mum."

Harry had thought of confessing what he knew about Lily many times over the months since he'd found out that she was almost Maia Black. But each time he'd held back in fear that James would be devastated over losing Lily because they had fought for muggleborn rights if he found out that Lily was actually a pureblood. But now, in respect for James' divulgence of the story of Harry's birth, and in awe of the deep understanding James clearly had of the history and current political landscape of magical Britain, Harry knew he had to confess.

"Dad, mum wasn't a muggleborn. She was the secret child of Electra Black and Rogerick Lestrange. Her mum left her on the step of a church, and those muggles adopted her without telling anyone."

James froze in his steps and stared unblinkingly at the village they were less than a thousand feet from. "You know this how?" he asked after a moment.

"Mum's sister, Petunia, told me they found Lily on the steps of a church, and I wrote to the church and found out about how Electra Black gave birth there and then both she and her baby disappeared. I assume Rogerick Lestrange was mum's dad as he was having an affair with Electra Black and he also left the country at the time."

James swallowed. "That's amazing. Lily would have been so—so _elated_ to know those horrid muggles weren't actually related to her. I wish she could have known that and perhaps found her parents…"

"But…" Harry trailed off. "But didn't she sort of _like_ being muggleborn? She fought her whole life for their rights."

James shook his head dismissively. "Lily would have fought for that anyway. She always had a soft spot for anyone who wasn't treated right. She was so kind-hearted—so _good_—but also fierce. Why didn't you tell me this sooner, Harry?"

Harry shrugged uncomfortably as they began to walk again. "I don't know. I tried, once…but I suppose I thought you might be mad that you fought for muggleborns if you knew mum wasn't one."

James chuckled. "I suppose I understand. You have a kind heart, too, Harry." He smiled down at Harry, who ducked behind his fringe as he smiled hesitantly back. "Lily was murdered because she fought to protect the weak and the neglected. She died the most honourable death any witch or wizard can. She would never regret that fight."

Harry smiled faintly, but he didn't fail to notice that James hadn't mentioned whether _he_ regretted it.

"So, here we are," James murmured as they entered the village. "Well, Harry, I know this exile of mine seems like a curse, but I'm choosing to view it as a blessing. I'm going to get my life together, starting here."

He ghosted his hand over Harry's head, and then put his arm around his son, and in a moment of weakness, Harry remembered being held tightly in the strongest arms in the world, and he felt a burst of love for this weak, this cruel, this tender man.


	5. Blood and Salt

**o─-o─-o─-─-─-─ WITHOUT THORN THE ROSE ─-─-─-─o-─o-─o**

Summary: When Lily died she left a broken James to raise a stranger's son. When a drunken act of violence sees James demoted to prison guard, Harry is inducted into the mysteries of Azkaban, and begins to solve the mysteries of his own existence, as well. SLASH. AH/AU. Some RL/SB, RL/JP, future LV/HP in sequels.

Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling.

Warnings: SLASH. That means men. Having sex. With each other.

Notes: Thanks for all the reviews, favorites, and follows. I have been working a lot on the sequel. I may also post some of the photos I've been using for inspiration somewhere.

o─-─-─-─-─ 5. BLOOD AND SALT ─-─-─-─-─o

All the officers' houses were identical, consisting of a cube topped by a triangular roof whose two slopes met at an acute angle¹. This attic space had a window on each end and a tiny balcony sheltered beneath the sharply sloping roof. Harry claimed the attic as his before they had even gone inside.

"It's probably freezing up there at night, heating charms or no," James warned.

"Perfect," Harry pronounced it.

Inside the house, they found the downstairs divided in half. The half nearest the front was a combination sitting area and kitchen. There were two doors in the wall across from the front door; to the right, a small bedroom; to the left, a tiny bathroom with a stand-up shower and an auto-vanishing chamber pot. There was also a trapdoor into a freezing cold cellar, and Harry had a brief urge to claim the cellar as his room instead. The dark, the cold, and the enclosed feeling were soothing to him.

James seemed to sense his son's thoughts. "_No_, Harry. This is for storage."

Back on the ground floor, they ascended the small ladder into the attic, and James set about unpacking the furniture. He had shrunk the entire contents of their cottage in Ottery St. Catchpole and packed it into two suitcases with a combination of cushioning and feather-light charms. It was nice to have his familiar bed and dresser and desk, but Harry's floor space was non-existent with everything unpacked. Nevertheless, Harry arranged his things to his taste as best he could, while James unpacked his own furnishing downstairs.

"I might be able to anchor a space-expanding charm," James offered, poking his head up through the trapdoor to the attic. He yawned. "But not tonight. Let's go get dinner, and we'll unpack the rest after."

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

¹ If you want to know what I'm picturing, you can go and look up pictures of Longyearbyen, Svalbard.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

In the mess hall, Harry got his first look at the wizenguards of Azkaban. They were a sorry lot. Those who weren't pale or weedy were burly or hairy. Those who didn't look mean looked sullen, and those who didn't look morose looked morbid. Harry wondered whether the guards had somehow traded places with the prisoners. He glanced at his father and realized that even James looked pale and morose.

There was only one man who seemed out of place, so after Harry had loaded a plate with ham and beans and fruit salad, he plonked himself down right across from Bjorn Halvard.

"You. Boy," the gigantic north-man grumbled. Harry studied the man, lips pursed in appraisal. The dire man's one remaining eye was the dark grey-blue of the North Sea, and his hair was a sun-bleached blonde on top with brown peeking out from underneath. The scar dividing his face ran from his hairline, across his forehead and his patch-covered eye, down his cheek, and halfway down his neck.

"My name's Harry," he introduced himself.

"Don't care," Bjorn replied.

"What happened to your face?" Harry asked curiously.

Bjorn scowled ferociously. "Bear," he spat.

"I like it," Harry commented, smiling a bit. He glanced over his shoulder and waved at his father as the man was snagged by the Wizenwarden, Fintan Oakes. James grimaced apologetically, and Harry shrugged nonchalantly.

"You want a scar like this?" Bjorn suggested, leering.

"Er, no, thanks. I'm not sure it would suit me. But it looks dashing on you."

Bjorn glared. "You have a quick tongue, boy," he allowed.

"Thanks," Harry grinned. He self-consciously checked that his fringe was covered his scar.

Bjorn's stern face darkened. "Boys should be quiet, watch and listen, not squawk at everything like baby birds."

Harry frowned. "I've been called a snake and a weasel before, but no one's ever compared me to a bird. I suppose you would be a bear. Isn't that what Bjorn means? Ironic that you got mauled by one. Did you not have your wand on you?"

Bjorn turned his head and spat onto the ground. "I have no use for your silly sticks, _fugleunge_."

Harry's eyes widened. "Really? You must be a squib, then. Why does the ministry let a squib transport prisoners?"

Bjorn growled. "Not all wizards use wands."

"What do you focus your magic with, then?"

"This." Bjorn drew a huge knife from his belt and set it on the table. Harry made an impressed noise. The razor sharp blade curved to a wicked point, and the handle was white, mottled with odd brown markings.

"What's the handle? Bone?"

"Mammoth ivory," Bjorn muttered around half a buttered roll. He could consume a roll in two bites, and had already eaten several.

"And the metal?"

"Steel."

Harry frowned. "I thought wand materials had to be pure. Isn't steel a mix of iron and carbon?"

Bjorn snorted. "What's pure about a unicorn hair or a phoenix feather? They shit and piss, too. The strength of a wand is in whether it suits the wizard. A north-man needs more than a twig to defend himself."

Harry had a brief mental image of Dumbledore's phoenix familiar splattering the top of the old man's head with flaming shit. His mouth quirked into a smile.

"Did they let you use that at Hogwarts?" Harry inquired.

"I didn't go to Hogwarts, _fugleunge_," Bjorn announced, sneering.

"Where did you go, then? Durmstrang?"

Bjorn made a dismissive noise. "I learned from my _faren_ and _moren_, just as they learned from theirs."

"Home-schooled, then."

Bjorn nodded shortly.

"I'm home schooled, too," Harry offered. "The other kids hated me so my dad withdrew me and let me take classes by owl."

Bjorn sneered again. "My _faren_ would have spit on me if I ran from a fight. You south-men are cowards and weaklings."

"I'm not a south-man."

"You aren't a man at all."

"I mean," Harry snapped, annoyed, "I must have some northern blood or something, because I love the cold."

"You're like a blushing bride, _fugleunge_, who loves her husband's sweet words until he has his way with her at last."

Harry scowled at being compared to a naïve virgin girl, mostly because the comparison was warranted. "I am not. I don't know how to explain it"—he broke off, frustrated. When he began again, it was in a lower tone, glancing from side to side to be sure no one was listening. The mess hall was mostly empty now, save for a trio playing cards before the roaring fireplace, and James and the Wizenwarden talking heatedly at another table.

"It's like I belong in the cold," Harry murmured, leaning closer to the massive, dire-faced man. For some reason, he hoped that this person could understand, perhaps even offer insight. "Do you know what I mean? It doesn't hurt me even if I walk barefoot in snow or going swimming in the middle of winter. In fact, I like it. It's comforting. And I can make things cold. Look." He touched the side of Bjorn's tankard of beer with one finger, and focused. The beer froze solid within seconds.

The north-man stopped eating and narrowed his eye, examining Harry appraisingly.

"Do you think I'm a freak?" Harry asked apprehensively.

"No," Bjorn answered immediately, but continued thinking. After a while, he said, "There is a story told by men of the north, especially by sailors and miners and the like—those who live where the sun does not rise or set for months. Not a tale that wizards know. They say that sometimes a man who is buried does not stay buried. Sometimes he walks again, bringing storms with him and freezing all he sets his eye upon, and driving men to madness and death. He is called _draugr._"

Harry shivered. "Is it real? Have you seen one?"

"I, no. But I know a creature like it, who brings frost wherever he goes, and drives men mad."

"What creature is that?"

Bjorn gestured at one of the walls with his tankard. "No one knows how they came here, _fugleunge_. Only that they feast on despair and death. Oh, these south-men will swear the creatures do their bidding, and perhaps they do, but after their own fashion. Never doubt that. It's only after their own fashion. If they took a notion to it, they could devour all our souls."

"The dementors?" Harry breathed. "Don't the patronuses guard the village?"

"The strength of a patronus lies in the strength of the memory used to cast it. Tell me, _fugleunge_, how happy do these men seem to you?"

Harry paled. Yet, strangely, another part of him felt excitement at the notion that the dark, mysterious creatures might decide to run rampant someday.

"You should learn to conjure your own patronus as soon as you can," Bjorn advised sternly.

"But I'm underage."

Bjorn spat on the floor again. "Fuck your 'underage'. I was doing magic as soon as I could hold a knife, as my forefathers have done for a thousand years. Free magic, it's called, because it bows to no laws but those of nature. You don't need any money or schools or books to learn it. Just find yourself a tool that suits you and get to it."

"But how?" Harry asked pleadingly.

Bjorn shrugged. He had cleared a truly massive amount of food, and now was merely nursing his beer. "The way all magic is done. Concentrate on what you need. Concentrate so hard that everything else is forgotten, and then push your magic through your magical focus—your wand, if you like. If it's a patronus you want, then feed a memory to your magic, the happiest one you have."

"But I can't buy a wand until I'm eleven."

Bjorn scowled. "I said you don't need money. I use a knife for a focus, but my father used a walrus tusk. My brother, a reindeer antler, and my wife, a living branch of rowan. Some even use their familiars. You'll know when you find the right thing."

"You're married?" Harry asked, curious as always.

"That," Bjorn growled, sticking his knife through his belt again, "is a tale for another time." He pushed his bench back from the table and stood. "May you sleep without nightmares, _fugleunge_."

"What does 'foogloonga' mean, anyway?" Harry asked, also standing and trailing after the north-man as he strode to the door, where he collected his leather cloak and hat.

Bjorn laughed with a noise like the rumbling of distant thunder. "It's what you are," he answered mysteriously, and exited the mess hall, roughly banging the door shut behind him.

Harry resolved to owl Flourish & Blotts for an Icelandic dictionary. Or perhaps a Norwegian one.

"Haven't heard that man laugh in years," a reedy voice said from behind Harry. He turned and saw that James and Wizenwarden Oakes were the only two men still in the hall. "He likes you, boy. Better watch yourself."

"Why? Is he dangerous?" Harry inquired innocently.

"Is he dangerous," the warden scoffed. "I once saw that man fight a polar bear with his bare hands."

"I'm not a bear," Harry pointed out.

"No," the warden agreed. "You're a birdling. That's what _fugleunge _means."

"Harry," James broke in. "This is Wizenwarden Oakes. Warden, this is my son, Harry Azrael."

"The angel who steals away with the souls of men in the night?" The warden cackled. Harry hated the man instantly, but strove not to show it with his face. "You've come to the right place, then. The dementors will greet you like a brother."

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Harry learned what it meant to live on the Arctic Circle when the sun rose at four in the morning. Even with his shades drawn and a set of bath towels thrown over them, light leaked into the attic apartment and he couldn't sleep, though his body was too weary to do anything else but lie abed. So he dragged his sheets and pillows downstairs, and made himself a nest in the cellar, curling up atop two sofa pillows. It was blessedly cold and dark down there, and Harry felt that he could hibernate there all summer if he chose.

Harry woke to the sound of James frantically calling his name. Sighing, he rose and scrambled up the ladder into the main room.

"There you are!" his father exclaimed, fists uncurling. "I thought you'd been taken by the dementors or that awful boat captain."

"Bjorn?" Harry asked defensively. "He wouldn't do that."

"He's more bear than man," James warned ominously.

"You're only saying that because he yelled at you," Harry declared as he shut the trap door behind him and moved into the kitchen area to pour himself a bowl of muggle cereal. "He's actually very nice. He told me how to protect myself from dementors."

James folded his arms warily. "The only way to ward off dementors is with the patronus charm."

Harry nodded, pouring the milk. "He said I should learn it."

James sighed, running a hand through his ever-unruly mop of hair. "I wish you could, lad, but it's against Ministry law to get a wand or perform incantations before you're of age."

Harry shrugged. "Then I'll do it without a wand or Latin. Bjorn told me how."

James examined his son sceptically. "I knew it. He was putting funny notions into your head, wasn't he? The warden told me he's got a lot of queer ideas."

"They're not queer, just different."

James frowned. "I wish you could make a patronus, Harry. There are usually only three guarding the village, and they save the strongest ones for the prison itself. But I don't want you messing around with that sort of thing. It's dangerous. Got it?"

"What will I do if a dementor does come here?" Harry asked, secretly thrilling at the idea.

James puffed out a breath. "I tested our talking mirrors last night, and it's just as promised; they don't work here. The only magical items that work on Azkaban are wardstones and wands. But the warden says you can call to a patronus, and it will transport a message for you. You're not to do it unless there's an emergency, mind."

Harry murmured assent and began to eat his cereal.

"I want you to pick some new owl courses, today, Harry, and make one of them History. And none of that goblin wars nonsense that's in vogue with hawkish types. Real history that will help you understand why things are what they are." Harry nodded pensively. It was a good idea. "Other than that, take whatever you like, though a language would be good."

"I'm going to start Old English. Middle English was too easy."

"Fine. I put the catalogue on the coffee table." Harry glanced over at the small table that was wedged between two sofas without even an inch of space between. "Let me know what you've chosen before you send the owl off. I don't want you taking classes from any more Death Eaters." He glared forebodingly at Harry, who shrugged and scowled. "I'll be back at eight."

Harry glanced at the clock, which displayed 7:30 A.M. James grimaced.

"The shifts are twelve hours with an hour break in the middle. It's longer than I'm used to, but at least I don't have the night shift. They say the prisoners scream in their sleep." His face seemed to age at the thought, and Harry felt a pang of sympathy. "Don't leave the village, all right, Harry? If you get bored, you can go and see Warden Oakes' daughters. They live in the biggest house—Number 1. I'm sure they'd jump for joy at someone new to play with."

Harry made a face but hid it behind his fringe, which was trailing into his milk. James plucked the stray lock out and scourgified it.

"And one more thing, Harry. I want you to put those sofa pillows and whatnot back where they belong. You're not to sleep in the cellar. If people found that out, they'd think I was abusing you, and I can't afford any more trouble."

_That's not my fault_, Harry wanted to protest, but he wisely kept his mouth shut.

"Have a good day, son," James said, leaning over to kiss the top of Harry's head. "I love you."

Harry blushed at this most unfamiliar of endearments. "I love you, too, Dad," he mumbled into his spoon.

James messed up Harry's long black tresses playfully, and departed.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Harry, as instructed, chose new classes. The easiest to choose was _Old English 1_. He hoped it would be more challenging than Middle English, which he could understand for the most part without any translation. Next was _History of Ancient Britain_, since Harry figured he may as well start at the beginning. Then, inspired by Bjorn's story of dead men bringing storms and madness, he chose _Magical Creatures 1_. Finally, because of James' dire opinion of the Ministry—and he would know, since he worked for them—Harry selected _An Introduction to Modern Wizarding Law_.

That done, Harry took a book up to the attic and read by a window, glancing out occasionally when a soul came nearby. These were nearly always birds, but rarely humans. Harry read _An Illustrated History of Azkaban_, which seemed to have been written chiefly to cater to the public's taste for the grotesque, but was nonetheless informative and well-documented. Its section on dementors was seriously lacking, however—it was barely two pages long.

Around noon, Harry fixed himself a sandwich and ate on the tiny attic balcony. After lunch, he sent off to Flourish & Blotts for the longest book they could find that was solely about dementors, and for a dictionary of the language in which 'foogloonga'meant 'birdling', whatever that might turn out to be.

Next, he wrote a letter to Remus assuring his uncle that the island was beautiful and they were settling in nicely. After that, he put on his cloak and went outside for a walk about the village. A low stone fence marked the boundary of the tiny settlement. The stones were grey and white, large and small, stacked tightly without mortar, and dappled by yellow lichen and green moss. Harry walked along the inside of the fence, enjoying the stiff, salty breeze and the roar and murmur of the ocean.

On the side of the village farthest from the prison, there was a gap in the wall and a narrow footpath leading towards the sea. After checking that no humans were nearby, Harry turned down the path and walked for ten minutes until he reached the end of an outcropping that jutted into the sea. There were no railings or safety measures to keep him from falling into the water, and Harry was momentarily dizzy as he leaned out over the hundred foot drop to see what he could see.

The cliff was composed of solid rock split into dozens of layers with varying widths and colours. An endless procession of sharp-peaked waves hurled themselves against the face of it, licking up the face in a spray of foam, before falling back to reform and try again. Harry had always loved water, cold and dark and swaying, but he didn't think he would like to be dashed against the solid rock cliff. Harry watched, hypnotized, and thought that the sea was at war with the stone. Though the stone seemed implacable and impermeable, in time, the sea would wear the stone away into sand.

After a few minutes of watching, however, Harry changed his mind. The sea and the stone were lovers. The spray of the sea on the stone was a caress, a kiss, a bite. The sea sought to penetrate the stone, to taste all its secret clefts and chasms, and, ultimately, to carry the stone away into its abyssal depths where it would jealously guard the stone from the sight of sun and sky. Harry smiled, knowing the disgusted look James would get at hearing such a daft fancy. He did wonder, though, what it would be like to be so fiercely desired.

Eventually Harry moved on, following another branch of the footpath that led south along the edge of the island and away from the prison. There were no trees on the island and Harry found himself admiring the wide open vistas this granted. He wandered at a leisurely pace, stopping occasionally to admire the small yellow and purple flowers that grew amongst the wild grass, or to observe a bird foraging in the water below. It seemed there were many nests in the nooks and crannies of the tall cliffs, as a multitude of tiny glowing souls were crowded along the rim of the island. There were plenty of fish in the water, as well, though their souls were even smaller than the birds. Far off in the dark sea, two larger souls, almost as large as humans, twined about one another in a slow dance. Harry knew them for whales.

After half mile or so, the footpath veered off the edge of the cliff, and Harry was so distracted that he almost walked right off it. The situation puzzled him until he realized that there was a small strand below him. But how was he meant to get to it? _Magic, obviously._ He frowned at the rough rock cliff and wondered whether he could climb down. Then he saw a pattern of unnaturally sharp rocks in the weather-beaten rock and realized that someone had carved a set of precarious steps down to the sand.

With an uneasy trembling in his gut, Harry picked his way down the cliff, holding onto each handhold so hard that his fingers cramped, and easing his weight onto each step at a snail's pace. More than once he had to kick aside a nest of grass and twigs or freeze a furiously defensive bird whose children he had slaughtered. And the accumulation of bird-shit was disgusting. He made it down to the sand, however, and spent several minutes furiously scouring his hands clean in the seething breakers. The salt-water was blissfully frigid and invigorating. Harry waded into it up to his knees and grinned. He felt oddly as though the ocean welcomed him, and he knelt to give it a kiss, feeling foolish but also satisfied.

"Give me a wand," he murmured into the waves. "Something I can focus my magic with."

Around him, the dark, foamy water seemed to draw back, holding its breath, and Harry said, "Give me a focus, and I'll let you taste my magic." The sea seemed to hiss angrily, and Harry's stomach trembled. He had no idea what madness had possessed him to promise such a thing, but it wasn't much madder than talking to water to begin with.

A massive wave surged forward, then, all the breath that the sea had been holding rushing out in one blast, and knocked Harry off his feet. He spun in darkness and foam, flailing wildly for purchase and finding none. He was sure for a wild, fevered moment that he would die, but with another great surge, the sea spat him back out, and Harry landed back on solid ground. He felt the water recede, dragging him with it a few inches and scraping his delicate skin on the sand and gravel, but it let him go.

Harry lay with his face on wet sand, gasping and trembling, unable to move. There was a piercing pain in his hand, and his heart was pounding so hard that it seemed liable to break free of its cage. It drummed a tattoo of both fear and excitement. Harry lifted his hand and stared at it dumbly.

Driven clear through Harry's palm so that it protruded from either side was a branch of white coral, as long as Harry's hand and as thick as his little finger.

_It heard me_, Harry thought wildly. _It knows me, now. It has tasted my magic by tasting my blood. _The thought made him both shiver and laugh a bit hysterically. He felt a strong urge to keep the encounter secret, as though he had engaged in a sordid tryst. James would think it dark magic. Perhaps it _was_ dark magic. Harry had never heard of anything like what had just happened, except in legends and fairy tales. He wondered briefly if he was dreaming, but surely the pain would have woken him.

Harry cradled his injured hand with the good one, biting his lip and blinking away tears. The pain was both sharp and dull, and when he tried to flex his hand, the pain radiated up his arm and he felt faint. As this sudden flare of pain subsided, however, he felt a powerful rush of something he could only describe as pleasure. It shot through his veins like liquid gold, making his muscles go limp and his eyes flutter.

Breathing deeply, and filled with sudden resolve, he pressed his fingers flat into the sand, and stepped down on them as hard as he could with one boot. Then, before he could think it through too much, he yanked on the branch of coral. An unrecognizable shriek of pain tore from Harry's throat, and he shook violently. He let go of the branch, leaned over, and vomited.

Harry rocked back and forth, quietly whimpering his pain, for an indeterminate amount of time. It wasn't until the sun touched the sea and the light grew red that Harry came to his senses. There was no way he could remove the branch without medimagic. He picked himself up and staggered on rubbery legs to the cliff.

As he climbed, the sea behind him seemed to hiss with laughter.


	6. Bear and Wolf

o─-o─-o─-─-─-─ **WITHOUT THORN THE ROSE** ─-─-─-─o-─o-─o

Summary: When Lily died she left a broken James to raise a stranger's son. When a drunken act of violence sees James demoted to prison guard, Harry is inducted into the mysteries of Azkaban, and begins to solve the mysteries of his own existence, as well. SLASH. AH/AU. Some RL/SB, RL/JP, future LV/HP in sequels.

Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling.

Warnings: SLASH. That means men. Having sex. With each other. Although not in this chapter.

Notes: This chapter has quite a few footnotes, but please read them because the mythological references are important to the story. Honestly, if you're not enjoying that aspect of the story, you REALLY aren't going to like the direction this series is going in as a whole. I hope you enjoy the chapter. Thanks again for all the reviews, favs, and follows. Also, can you all tell me if you like Bjorn, or if he is anathema as an original character? He's not super-vital in the long run, and I won't change him one whit either way, but I am curious.

o─-─-─-─-─ 6. BEAR AND WOLF ─-─-─-─-─o

By the time James left for his shift the next morning, Harry had doused his wound with the entire stock of healing balm and numbing solution that James kept in their small potions cabinet. Harry could only hope that the owl-order he had placed for more supplies would arrive before James noticed anything amiss. If there was anything Harry dreaded, it was the look of disappointment on his father's face. The sloppy scrawl Harry had produced with his off-hand was awkward, but legible, and he hadn't met the potioneer yet who would turn away galleons.

Harry had pretended to sleep when James shouted for him to come eat his breakfast, and as soon as his father was gone, Harry threw on a cloak and made for the island's single dock, with his impaled hand stuffed deep into one voluminous pocket. The wound was no longer bleeding, and the sharp pain had faded, but it still throbbed queerly, deep inside the flesh.

There was a high promontory overlooking the jetty, and it was there Harry waited for three hours until Bjorn's boat appeared, a mere dot on the horizon. When the vessel was close enough that Harry could make out the red cloaks of Aurors, he huddled down between a few strategically placed rocks and did his best impression of granite until he saw the group of three men passing on the footpath at the bottom of the slope. When Harry jogged down the weathered grey steps to the dock, he found Bjorn sipping tea on the deck and reading a foreign newspaper.

"I was wondering if you were ever coming down, _fugleunge_," the boat captain remarked amicably, not even glancing at Harry.

"How did you know it was me?"

"Most rocks don't wiggle so much," Bjorn explained. "It was either you, or the most inept escape attempt I've foiled yet."

"I need to talk to you."

"Another day. Best be home before the Aurors return, or your father will find out you've been running wild all over the island."

Harry huffed. "There are worse things he could find out about than that." He withdrew his injured hand from his pocket, hissing as the rough coral caught on a bit of fabric and sent a ripple of white-hot pain up his arm all the way to the shoulder.

Bjorn's single, sea-blue eye stared expressionlessly at Harry's hand for a long moment. Then, slowly, he began to laugh. Harry flushed bright red.

"If you're done laughing at my misfortune, I could really use some help," Harry snapped, gesturing at the boat's ladder that Bjorn had not yet lowered.

"I was simply imagining what hard work it must have been getting yourself into so much trouble in so little time," the north-man declared.

"It wasn't my fault," Harry muttered angrily. Bjorn shot him a sceptical look, and Harry fumed. "Fine, it was a little bit my fault."

"Come on up, then," Bjorn invited calmly, lowering the ladder. Harry couldn't manage the rungs one-handed, however, so Bjorn seized the boy by his right arm and lifted him three feet to the deck as easily as Harry might have lifted a doll. Harry felt a quick rush of gratitude.

A few minutes more saw them both snuggled from head to foot in reindeer fur and sipping cups of hot tea in the tiny cabin of the boat. Harry accepted these things only out of a desire not to offend his host, which Bjorn surely knew, but the furs were soft and comfortable, and the tea was strong and rich. The cabin held only a table and two chairs, which were bolted down, and a bed that was folded up into the wall. There were some storage boxes, as well, and Harry found himself wondering if Bjorn slept on the boat.

"So," Bjorn said after they had both enjoyed a few sips of tea. He looked pointedly at Harry's hand, seeming unperturbed by the grisly sight. Harry felt like vomiting whenever he looked at it. "Is there some particular reason you're impersonating a pincushion, or is island life simply too dull for you?"

Harry choked on a hysterical giggle, but managed to repress it. If he let himself laugh at the absurdity of the situation, he would probably end up bursting into tears. "I was searching for a magical focus, like you told me, so I…I went down to the sea, and…well…" Bjorn shot him a pointed glance and raised his eyebrows. Harry flushed. "I tried to pull it out, but it hurt so much I almost fainted. I need your help."

Bjorn frowned. He took Harry's injured hand in both of his and examined it closely. In Bjorn's giant, callused hands, Harry's tiny pale hand seemed a fingerling caught in a bear's paws. Yet Harry felt safe there. He didn't know why, and it was doubtless foolish, given that he'd known this man less than a week, but he trusted the one-eyed north-man.

Bjorn removed his knife from his belt and laid it on Harry's hand. His eye glazed over and he began to mutter under his breath.

"There," he said eventually, releasing Harry's hand. "I've healed it as much as it can be healed."

"But you've got to take it out!"

Bjorn sat back and considered Harry seriously for a moment. "This kind of coral grows all around here¹, you know. But most never see it, because it lives in the deepest fathoms, where sunlight cannot touch it. At those depths, a man would be crushed to death by the weight of the water alone. Only the strongest wizards can travel to such places, so I can't think how you came upon this. Tell me how this happened, _fugleunge_."

Harry shifted uncomfortably, and flushed slightly, but he was too ashamed to admit the true circumstances of his accident. It had been foolish indeed, bargaining with a force of nature. There were fairy tales to warn children from doing such things, but that moment had seemed so magical, so—fateful.

Bjorn's face was as still as a stone. "Do you want to hear how I got this scar?" the one-eyed man asked after a moment. His voice was gruff but not unkind. Harry blinked at him, intrigued, and nodded hesitantly.

Bjorn grimaced and took a swallow of tea, apparently considering how to begin. He scraped his long, scraggly grey-blonde locks back from his face and gazed out the porthole as though it held the memories of his past. Then he began to spin the story.

"When I was younger, I used to gamble. I would lay a bet on anything from when the first storm of the season would be to whether my brother could catch the woman he had his eye on. So when I took up the trade to Azkaban, I started gambling with the wizenguards, including Warden Oakes. They haven't much to do, all alone out here, so they always found time for a contest. There was bad blood from the start, though. They needed the magic of a north-man to navigate the treacherous seas in these parts, but they didn't like my ways, and I didn't like theirs."

"What ways?" Harry asked curiously.

Bjorn shrugged one shoulder and scratched his beard.

"When I'd say a prayer to my family gods before eating, they'd jeer at me. So I'd make fun of them for waving those prissy twigs. That kind of thing. I liked betting against them in contests of strength—arm wrestling, knife throwing, and the like, and I usually won. They didn't mind that so much, since it fit their image of me as an uneducated barbarian. But when they challenged me to magical contests, and I held my own there, too, it infuriated them. They found it hard to counter my spells, since they aren't written in books, so I often won. Of course, I don't have the range of spells that you south-men do. In my land, each man has to find his own spells—ah, but that's another conversation."

Bjorn waved one large, calloused hand dismissively, and although Harry was keenly interested in that topic, he let it drop.

"The point is, one night Oakes and some of the others challenged me to fight a bear, unarmed."

Harry cocked an eyebrow.

Bjorn's face darkened. "I agreed. That was my first mistake."

"But how could you possibly—without your knife"—Harry exclaimed, caught up in the tale.

One corner of Bjorn's mouth twisted up, but he didn't look amused. "Ah, but you see _fugleunge_, they thought they were being clever. They chose a bear because that's my name—Bjørn means bear. But what they didn't realize is that I was not born with this name. It is a custom in both our lands, is it not, to take on a new name to suit one's gifts? My parents renamed me when they realized I could speak the tongue of bears."

Harry's celadon-green eyes went wide as galleons. "You can?" he breathed in awe. He had never even heard of that gift.

Bjorn smiled, eyes shining like the sea under the summer sun. "Yes. The gift runs in my family, not unlike your country's Slytherin clan."

Harry smiled to himself but held his tongue. Bjorn's mouth twisted downward again, and he looked grim.

"So, instead of fighting the bear, I simply asked her to surrender to me. In exchange, I promised to bring her safely back to her home. She agreed, and I won the bet—or I should have. But the guards had been drinking, and they wanted blood. They had planned to feast on the bear whether I defeated her or not, and to skin her for a rug. Oakes cast a cutting spell at her, and she charged him."

"But you're the one with the scar."

Bjorn laughed bitterly. "I was certain he'd kill her if she injured him, so I tried to stop her. I thought I could talk sense into both Oakes and the bear."

"That was your second mistake."

"No," Bjorn disagreed, his eyebrows furrowing like storm clouds. He was quiet a moment. "That was not a mistake."

"Then it worked? You talked them down?"

"I was mauled before I got a word out."

"Then how was it not a mistake? It did no good!" Harry was so caught up in the story that he forgot it was best not to criticise adults.

Bjorn smiled enigmatically, and stroked the scar that split his face like a crevasse. "Did it not? That was the last time I ever gambled."

Harry made a frustrated gesture. "That isn't worth losing your eye, surely!"

Bjorn shrugged nonchalantly and poured himself another cup of tea. "If it wasn't my eye, it would have been something else: my arm, or my head, perhaps. I'm alive now, and that's good enough for me."

Harry stared, baffled. He couldn't fathom Bjorn's indifference. If it had been him, he would have waited for an opportune moment, and pushed the Warden off a tower. "But don't you want revenge?"

Bjorn sipped and looked contemplative. "Revenge?" he answered. "On who? The Warden? As if _he _could have taken any eye of _mine_!" The one-eyed north-man laughed sharply. "Besides, that man already lives in a world of darkness. That's enough victory for me, I think."

Harry slumped back. He felt disappointed by this answer, even though he could see the objective logic of the man's words. "So they killed the bear?"

Bjorn nodded. "The guards ate beef stew for a week."

"That's awful."

"It was. Very greasy." Bjorn agreed, with a straight face. Then he softened a little and added, "Death comes to all beings, _fugleunge_, and in turn they are born again. So we believe in the north."

Harry nodded pensively. That was an old belief², older than the curse of Merlin, and still widely held amongst the old families. "Can I hear you say something in bear-tongue?" he asked, perking up a bit at the idea.

Bjorn chuckled. In a rumbling, guttural growl, he roared something that Harry thought he could almost understand. He beamed at the north-man.

Harry debated a moment, and then he hissed in the snake tongue, "I wisssh my father were as underssstanding as you are."

Bjorn shivered as at a sudden chill and looked vaguely impressed.

"Promise you won't tell anyone?" Harry asked, blushing.

"Aye, I'll keep your secret. A man needs his secrets, even such a small one as you."

Harry smiled gratefully.

"Now," Bjorn asked seriously. "Are you ready to tell me what really happened?"

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

¹ This is completely factual. The species I'm using is_ Lophelia pertusa_—Google it for a visual. I actually found out about this species _after_ writing Bjorn's description of it, oddly enough, but it grows right where I picture Azkaban (somewhere between the Shetland and Faroe Islands).

² The druids are said to have believed in reincarnation, although there is not much solid evidence regarding the specifics of their beliefs and practices in general.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

When Harry's tale was done, Bjorn sipped his tea for a moment and considered. "You should not remove it," he decided finally.

"What?" Harry demanded indignantly. "I can't go around with a great bloody piece of coral stuck through me for the rest of my life."

"You can trim it down, but you mustn't remove it. It's not safe."

"Why on earth not?"

"It's bonded with your magic; I felt that clearly when I touched it with my knife. If you remove it, you'll damage the magical vein. You might never be able to cast with that hand again." Bjorn leaned forward, then, looking into Harry's eyes seriously, and added, "Apart from that, this is a gift from the gods, _fugleunge,_ and for men to move what the gods have placed is an ill deed."

"The _gods…_" Harry made a face. Wizards often referred to the gods, but usually as a figure of speech or in place of a curse word. Bjorn's earnestness made Harry feel the same squeamish distaste that he felt whenever James' elderly cousins enjoined him to participate in celebrating Beltane¹ by dancing sky-clad² around a bonfire. Still, this explanation made as much sense as anything Harry could think of.

Bjorn sensed Harry's doubt. "I don't know how it is in the south, but here in the north the gods are still very much with us. I can't say which of them it was—Ægir³, perhaps, or Rán⁴—but I've no doubt it was a god."

"They're not very nice, then, are they, the gods? If they get their laughs by stabbing random humans?"

"Look on the bright side. At least it wasn't mistletoe⁵," Bjorn replied with a chuckle. Harry glared, and Bjorn softened, placating Harry. "I'll trim it down for you, all right?"

Harry sighed with defeat, and nodded.

Bjorn placed his knife on each end of the coral branch in turn and magically sliced it so that it was flush with his skin. Harry examined the results critically. Bjorn had done good work. The bits of coral that still showed were about the size of knuts, and as white as bone. They protruded from his flesh half a millimetre or so.

"Do you think I can pass this off as some kind of appliqué?" Harry questioned morosely, wondering how he was going to explain to James.

"Perhaps, but you'll need something else to explain why you never take it off. But at least you can never be disarmed—except in the literal sense, of course."

Harry blinked and perked up a bit. What with all the pain and self-recrimination, he had completely forgotten that he had gotten what he bargained for—a focus for his magic. Despite the threat of discovery that still loomed large, Harry began to relax for the first time since his encounter with the sea.

"Thank you, Bjorn," he murmured sincerely. "You didn't have to help me with this."

"You're special, Harry," Bjorn said after a moment of silence, in which he eyed Harry critically. "You'll do great things, one day, and I would see you become worthy of greatness."

Harry scowled and brushed his fringe over his scar. He hated the mark at times.

"I don't mean that," Bjorn corrected him. "I simply have an instinct for these things."

Harry lifted his eyes to peer through his fringe at the one-eyed captain. Bjorn reached out, and ruffled Harry's sleek black hair gently. Harry felt a gush of some warm emotion, and took his leave before he could embarrass himself.

In the days to come, Harry now and then found himself touching the spot where Bjorn's warm, rough hand had caressed him, as though that part of Harry had become unfamiliar to himself. The hair on his head, however, remained unchanged.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

¹ Beltane was an ancient Gaelic festival celebrated in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man. It marked the beginning of summer and was linked to similar festivals held elsewhere in Europe, such as May Day and Walpurgis Night. Fertility rituals were important, symbolized by the lighting of fires around which the people danced in a sun-wise direction.

² Sky-clad = ritual nudity, symbolizing freedom, truth, etc.

³ A sea giant, god of the ocean, and king of the sea creatures in Norse mythology.

⁴ In Norse mythology, Rán (Old Norse "sea") is a sea goddess, married to Ægir, with whom she had nine daughters, all named after different aspects of the sea. She had a net in which she tried to capture men who ventured out on the sea.

⁵ The wood of the arrow that killed Baldur, a Norse god mainly known for the story of his death, which is so tied up in other parts of Norse mythology that you should probably just go read the entire Wikipedia article. Bonus: the movies _Thor _and _The Avengers_ will make more sense.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Over the next few weeks, Harry spent nearly all of his time trying to do magic with his coral focus, allotting only a few hours a week to his actual classes, and to tracking down the dire-looking boat captain and pestering him for tips. Bjorn instructed Harry in the north-men's way of learning magic. The process might have been shorter if Harry had believed the man the first time, but it was difficult to accept that what took seven years of supervised instruction in Harry's country took five minutes in Bjorn's.

There were three steps to learning magic in the north. Step one, stay in touch at all times with your own innate magic and magical core. Step two, induce some accidental magic and observe it carefully. Step three, recreate the accidental magic. Unfortunately, the theory portion of Harry's education was a lot shorter than the practical. Bjorn was full of positively alarming ideas of how to induce accidental magic, such as pushing Harry off roofs or setting him on fire. Harry honestly wasn't sure whether the north-man was joking or not, so he just nodded and made it a point not to stand near the railing of the man's boat.

Considering Harry was only ten, concentrating on anything for more than fifteen minutes could have been considered an achievement, but Harry had always been the obsessive, driven type, and he refused to stop practicing for longer than it took to eat and sleep. Not until his magic bent itself to his will. After many dreary days of doing nothing but staring at the ceiling and concentrating so hard that he went cross-eyed, Harry finally managed to locate what he assumed was his innate well of magic. It was either that, or a very realistic hallucination, he reasoned. But it took many more days of mentally poking and prodding at the incomprehensible lump of magic before it responded to his desires.

Harry's first success was with levitation. He had been glaring at a feather for the better part of a day, and was on the verge of giving up for the night, since he could hardly keep his eyes open. Strangely, it was when he lost focus and let his mind drift that he finally got the hang of it. Excitement shot through Harry like a lightning bolt when the feather twitched,

and by the end of the next day, Harry could float the feather anywhere he liked, albeit slowly.

There were many successes after that: some easy, some hard; and many failures. Harry taught himself to bar the midnight sun that blared relentlessly through his window at all hours, but he failed in his attempts to charm the attic as cold as a larder, despite the fact that he had always been able to do the same trick without using any magic at all. It was baffling. Then there were his experiments in magical dish-washing. That fiasco ended with the entire kitchenette getting a scrub-down by hand.

Harry also spent time researching runes, looking for something suitable to carve into his coral focus so that he could pass it off as a jewellery appliqué. James had been distracted lately, and with any luck the man wouldn't look too closely. After an absurd amount of time spent paging through books of runes and sigils from every corner of the magical world, Harry decided to keep it simple. After practicing for a while on a rock that he could accidentally pulverize without maiming himself, he carved one rune into each side of the coral in his hand.

On the inner, palm side, Harry carved _Eihwaz_¹, the yew rune, which signified the mysteries of life and death, rebirth, secrecy, and spiritual insight. It also stood for the world tree _Yggdrasil_ which connected heaven, earth, and hell. Harry, who had died and come back to life once, felt drawn to all of these ideas, but, more than that, he was struck by the notion that the scar on his forehead was in the shape of a perfect _Eihwaz_.

On the outer side, Harry carved _Isaz_, the ice rune. Normally this rune symbolized challenge and immobility because ice challenged and immobilized people, but Harry had never viewed ice in the same way as other warm-blooded creatures. To Harry, ice was as welcoming and cosy as thick furs and hot tea were to Bjorn. To Harry, ice was the secret power that set him apart from others, but also protected him from them.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

¹ A.k.a._ Eoh_, _Eow_. If you go and look up what this looks like, which you should because runes are fun, I want to point out that it is _not_ the same one that the Nazis appropriated for their SS logo. That one is actually _Sowilo _or _Sigil_ (the sun rune) merkstave (rotated a little).

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Harry was napping after another marathon practice session when the sound of a door slamming startled him from his dream. For a moment he was still wandering through a frozen world where every form of life was encased in ice, and hope blossomed within him at the sound. Then he was back in his tiny attic room, and he had forgotten to make dinner.

Harry slithered over to the trap door and peeked through it. James was sitting on the couch scrubbing his hands through his hair. He glanced up at Harry, revealing heavy bags under his eyes.

"You okay, dad?" Harry asked as he descended the ladder.

James drew a deep breath, nodding and smiling wanly. "What's for dinner?"

"Er…hamburgers all right? It'll just take a minute."

"Sure."

It was an unspoken agreement that Harry prepared dinner. James was simply too exhausted in the evenings to fend for himself. It wasn't just the hours, Harry mused, as he heated the pan and pulled two hamburgers from stasis in the larder. The hours were long, that was true, but James slept every night as though he hadn't got a wink the night before. Harry figured the man slept nine or ten hours on weeknights, and on weekends he slept twelve or more. Harry had been alarmed the first time his father slept past lunch on a Saturday, but he'd got so used to it now he scarcely noticed.

When he brought his father's tray into the living room, however, he found James curled up on one of the sofas, snoring. The sight struck Harry with a pang of guilt. Harry should perhaps try to help his father more, but what else could he do? James didn't display any other signs of illness, and whenever Harry pressed him, the man became so grumpy that Harry fled to the attic.

Harry set James' tray on the coffee table, which was still wedged between the two sofas without an inch of room; James' promises of space-expanding charms had withered on the vine. Harry shook his father's ankle gently. James' eyes popped open and he flailed wildly for his wand, staring around as though he expected an attack. The bird's nest of coffee-coloured curls made him look like one of those mad old sorcerers in children's books.

"Ah, shit. Sorry, Harry. I was having some kind of crazy dream. Been having them ever since we came here."

Harry frowned worriedly. "It's fine, Dad. Are you all right?"

James nodded, yawning. His eyes slid closed again as though they were on plumb sinkers. In the past, Harry would have assumed the man was drunk and left him to stew in his own juices, but James had been true to his word and made an Unbreakable Vow not to drink voluntarily ever again.

"Dad," Harry said loudly, and shook James' leg, being careful to stand out of range of any flailing kicks.

"Whuzza? Mm?" James mumbled, opening his eyes a crack.

"Dinner," Harry answered, demonstrating by miming.

"Mmf. La'er," James grunted, and went back to sleep. Within seconds his snoring was so loud that it sounded as though a rogue lumberjack was sawing the house in two. Harry sighed, and put his father's plate in the stasis-box for "la'er".

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

The next Thursday found Harry back on Bjorn's boat, not having tea, but rather travelling back to the mainland. Harry had been on Azkaban for three weeks, and since he was only obligated to stay with his lawful guardian three-quarters of the time, he was now able to leave the island for a week. In truth, part of Harry wanted to stay on Azkaban so that he could keep practicing his magic day and night, but Remus had written an insistent letter to James, and Harry's father had folded faster than Merlin on laundry day. Still, Harry was pleased to see his uncle. He had missed their usual Sundays doing the _Prophet _crossword, eating biscuits, and just chatting about whatever came to mind.

To Harry's surprise, Remus had crossed to Azkaban with Bjorn so that he could inspect Harry's living quarters for himself. Harry was obliged to show Remus every dusty corner of their small home—which didn't take long—before the man would be satisfied. Harry felt an odd mixture of exasperated and pleased with the fusspot werewolf.

"Can you show me your patronus, Uncle Remus?" Harry asked, as Azkaban shrank into the distance. He was leaning against the rail of Bjorn's boat, since he didn't think the north-man likely to try to induce any of Harry's accidental magic with Remus right there. Harry's proximity to the water seemed to be making Remus nervous, however.

"Ah, Harry…I'd really rather not."

"Why not?" Harry demanded, frowning and turning to look at his uncle, who was sitting on the bench outside the cabin and gripping the handholds with white knuckles. Then he grinned. "Are you afraid of the ocean? That's it, isn't it?"

Remus huffed. "I just don't see why the ferry has to be so _small._ Some of these waves are nearly as big as the boat. Harry, look, I know it's enchanted, but can you please come away from the edge?"

"The rail is enchanted? Then how come Bjorn threatened to dump me overboard…?" Harry wondered.

Remus went white and called frantically, "Harry! Now!"

"I'm only winding you up, Uncle Remus," Harry laughed. "Of course it's enchanted."

Bjorn, appearing from the cabin, agreed. "I refreshed the spells myself this morning."

For some reason, this did not seem to alleviate Remus' anxiety, but Harry's uncle said no more. Harry frowned and cocked his head. There was a strange tension between the two adults. Harry didn't like it.

"Bjorn, can I see your patronus? Uncle Remus won't show me his. I think he's too seasick."

Bjorn chuckled, oblivious to the sour look that earned him from the other man, and drew from his belt the large knife which focused his magic. Remus drew in his breath sharply, and half stood, his face taut and feral. Harry opened his mouth to shout a warning, but Bjorn was already looking at Remus. There was a long, unbearably fraught and frozen moment, in which the two men locked eyes, and no one moved. One was a giant with rippling muscles hardened by a lifetime of labour. The other was lanky, pallid, and utterly unremarkable. And yet, for one moment, Harry was sure that the wolf would spring at the bear and tear his throat out.

Then a silver figure soared from the tip of Bjorn's knife, and swept through Remus, knocking the smaller man back onto the bench. Remus sat, still frozen for another moment, and then melted. He glared suspiciously at Bjorn's knife, then met the other man's eyes and nodded, once. Bjorn snorted and shoved the knife back through his belt. He spread his hands out, showing that they were empty, and smiled as though he found the entire encounter quite amusing, really.

Harry released a breath he hadn't noticed himself holding, and only then looked around to see where Bjorn's patronus had gone.

"What _is _that?" Harry asked in a hushed but excited voice, following the progress of the bird as it soared around the boat. The bird's wingspan was wider than Bjorn was tall, and Bjorn was very tall. It was magnificent.

"White-tailed sea eagle," Bjorn answered, with perfect equanimity. "Keep your eyes peeled and you might see one someday. They live around here."

Harry admired the glowing silver bird as it dove at the waves in an imitation of hunting. As though it sensed his attention, the bird swooped around and dove at Harry. The dark-haired boy reached his hand up to touch it, but just before he made contact, Bjorn gestured sharply with his hand, and the patronus dissolved into motes of silver light that winked out one by one.

Harry glared at Bjorn, who was frowning as though something were tugging at his mind. Harry huffed a sigh.

"Can I see yours now, Uncle Remus?" Harry pleaded, turning a bright smile on his uncle.

For a moment Harry didn't think Remus was going to answer him at all. The man's face was still wooden. But then Remus looked sideways and Bjorn, pointed his wand at the deck and murmured, "_Expecto Patronum_." A silver mist swirled out of his wand and coalesced into the shape of a large, shaggy dog. The dog cocked its head at Harry. Remus stroked its head, and the dog turned, licking Remus' face enthusiastically. Remus smiled, but his scar-lined face, which was already prone to gloominess, looked more forlorn than ever. After only a few seconds, Remus dismissed the patronus, turned his face away from the others, and resolutely stared out to sea as though his last friend in the world was floating out there amongst the waves.

Harry and Bjorn exchanged a look, and Harry shrugged. The man and the boy drifted to the other side of the boat, since Remus seemed content to brood alone. They chatted absently, and before long the Shetlands appeared on the horizon.

"Oh! I almost forgot. I carved some runes," Harry murmured excitedly, showing Bjorn his coral focus. Bjorn made an approving noise, taking Harry's small hand in his two large ones and turning it this way and that. He drew out his knife and checked the wound again, confirming that it was as healed as it ever would be.

"What are you doing?" a voice asked sharply. Remus was staring with murderous fury at the sight of Bjorn performing magic on his nephew. "How _dare_ you—" His voice shook with rage, but before he could finish the sentence, his eyes widened and an expression of shock overwhelmed the anger. "What is _that_!"

Harry stuck his hand behind his back and assumed the world's most pathetic semblance of innocence. Remus had seen that expression enough times to know what it meant, looming north-man or no.

"Harry," Remus warned ominously. Harry cringed and heaved a deep sigh. Bjorn chuckled, and Harry shot him a venomous glare. Bjorn conspicuously turned around and pretended not to be listening.

"It was an accident," Harry began, displaying his coral-pierced hand hesitantly.

Remus studied Harry's face. "You're a terrible liar, Harry," he remarked. His voice sounded very tired. Harry turned bright red and felt a sinking sense of shame.

"A-all right," he stammered. "But you can't tell Dad."

"Not a chance," Remus replied flatly.

Harry spluttered. "But—it really was an accident. I was only looking for"—he faltered—"for seashells, and I got knocked over by a wave. I don't know how it happened, really. Bjorn helped me heal it, but he couldn't remove it. I know I should have gotten a proper healer, but…I just _couldn't_ tell Dad. He's been so exhausted lately, I don't think he can take anymore, really. And it's too late to do anything more now, anyway."

Harry rather thought he deserved an award for this extemporaneous bit of theatre.

Remus sighed and ran a hand through his limp, mousy hair. "I suppose you think it's fashionable to have a scar," he remarked, glowering in Bjorn's direction, apparently forgetting his own plethora of faded white scars. "Harry, I have to tell James. He's your father."

Harry lips quivered, and he did not have to try very hard to achieve the effect he was going for. Remus looked pained, but torn.

"Look, _I'm _the one who almost got drowned," Harry said quickly. "_I'm_ the one that got impaled by a great bloody lump of coral. _I _know how dumb I was. It scared the wits out of me. Believe me, I'll never do anything like that ever again."

Remus groaned and rubbed his forehead as though this dilemma were hurting his brain. "I'll…think about it," he said finally.

Harry threw his arms around his uncle's midsection and squeezed him tightly.

"_Think_ is all I said," Remus cautioned irritably.

"I know," Harry answered, voice muffled by Remus' cloak. He was grinning, however, certain he'd won.


	7. The Seer

o─-o─-o─-─-─-─ **WITHOUT THORN THE ROSE** ─-─-─-─o-─o-─o

Summary: When Lily died she left a broken James to raise a stranger's son. When a drunken act of violence sees James demoted to prison guard, Harry is inducted into the mysteries of Azkaban, and begins to solve the mysteries of his own existence, as well. SLASH. AH/AU. Some RL/SB, RL/JP, future LV/HP in sequels.

Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling.

Warnings: SLASH. That means men. Having sex. With each other. Although not in this chapter.

Notes: Thanks for all you guys' reviews, favs, and follows. They really cheer me up and make me want to work harder on this. Also, I though you guys might like to share in some of the visual inspiration that I use to help me write, such as people I've chosen to be the faces of my versions of the characters, or photos of what I think Azkaban looks like, what souls look like to Harry, etc. I don't know about you guys, but I was pretty underwhelmed by some of the choices made in the movies. I already had my own private Pinterest boards to help me organize my inspiration, so I just reorganized them a little so as not to spoil anything and made some stuff public. My name on there is the same as on here so you can just go and search for me if you want to see that. So I hope you all enjoy that.

o─-─-─-─-─ 7. THE SEER ─-─-─-─-─o

The week at Remus' flew past, as Harry spent his days practicing his magic and playing in the woods around Ottery St. Catchpole. Lady was delighted to be in a warmer and drier environment, as evidenced by her ditching Harry the moment he brought her back to the woods where they had first met.

"Ahhh, no more horrid sssalt and cold," she sighed happily, when Harry set her at the edge of the little brook that fed Remus' pond. There were no fresh water sources on Azkaban, and she always complained that she could still taste salt no matter how many times James desalinated the drinking water. "Do we have to go back?"

"Yesss. Or Death Eaters will get cussstody of me."

"I don't sssee a problem; death isss deliciousss."

"Yesss, well, being baked into a pie isssn't exactly my idea of a good time," Harry replied. There was a long silence, and for a moment he thought he'd finally gotten the last word in with his impertinent familiar, but, when he looked around, he saw that she had disappeared.

_Bloody snake_, Harry thought to himself, as he kicked a rock in the direction that her soul was slithering off in. It seemed that Lady was unique amongst her kind; every book Harry had read on the subject had indicated that familiars were supposed to be the most loyal and devoted of companions. _Probably thinks I'm _her_ familiar_.

Harry made the most of his week. During the days, he practiced new spells: a sticky spell for his hands and feet to help him climb trees, a cushion spell for the ground so that he could jump down, a drying spell so that Remus wouldn't notice that Harry had been swimming in the brook when he'd been expressly forbidden. For all the man tried to be understanding, he never could quite seem to fathom that Harry wasn't going to catch his death of cold no matter how frigid the water was. At night, Harry sat on the couch with Remus while the man watched Omnivision and Harry paged through Remus' library, occasionally pestering his uncle with questions.

Remus' favourite show was a cooking competition in which the contestants had to make the best dish they could from randomly assigned ingredients. Harry had never enjoyed Omnivision much. The sofa in front of the Omni was where James had usually washed up when he was plastered. Remus, however, seemed riveted, as a witch with a hot pink Mohawk raced around a flaming kitchen, trying to catch a Runespoor that had escaped from her oven. Harry wasn't quite sure that was what the judges had meant when they challenged the contestants to 'set our palettes afire'.

"Do you fancy her?" Harry asked idly, wondering what was so fascinating about the program.

"Hm?" Remus grunted absently. He blinked at Harry, then seemed to catch up. "Her? No, no. She's a brilliant cook, that's all."

"Do you only fancy blokes, then?"

Remus sighed. "Harry," he said pleadingly. It was his _why-must-you-question-everything_ tone.

"Do you fancy my dad?"

Remus slapped a palm to his face. "_Harry_."

"Well, do you?"

"Look, that's…it's a little…well…"

Harry took pity on his uncle, and turned his attention back to the show. The pink-Mohawked witch was now mixing the Runespoor's eggs for an omelette. Harry's mind was still clicking away, however, and a few minutes later he popped out with,

"Why does your patronus make you sad?"

Remus did not respond, but his jaw clenched. _Pay-dirt_, Harry thought, observing closely.

"I always thought they were supposed to make people feel happy," Harry continued. This produced no response, so Harry dug around for a suitable goad. "Do some patronuses not work? We've only got three that guard the wizenguards' village, so it wouldn't be too good if one of them was off."

Remus exhaled. "No, it's—not that. He—it—just…reminds me of old memories."

"What sort of memories?"

Remus' jaw clenched again, and his face started to go a bit hard like it had when he was facing off with Bjorn. Harry backed off for a few more minutes before he tried again. The Omni was focusing on another contestant now, a wizard with spiralling runes tattooed up and down his arms, whose dish kept sending sticky tentacles over the sides of the pot it was cooking in and gobbling other ingredients.

"Is it to do with Hogwarts?" Harry asked. "Dad never wants to talk about that. Once he threw a fork at me when I asked."

Remus shot Harry a sympathetic look, but there was still irritation mixed in with it. Harry turned back to the Omni. Now the tentacled dish was waving a spatula at its cook, who was fending it off with a potato masher. Harry glanced at Remus, impatient. Adults were so much work.

"Is it to do with someone you fancy?" Harry asked pointedly.

Remus' head thumped back against the couch, and he stared at the ceiling as though asking the gods to witness and judge Harry's behaviour. "You're not going to give this up, are you?" he asked flatly.

"Nope," Harry agreed cheerfully.

"Fine," Remus answered, in a subdued tone. He drew a deep breath, and sighed. "When I was in school, I had three best friends, and I fell in love with one of them." He paused, staring into space. "Those were the happiest days of my life. We were inseparable—got engaged, even. But…" Remus' expression grew distant. "It turned out that he wasn't the man I thought he was."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked.

"He joined the Death Eaters."

Harry inhaled sharply. "It was Sirius Black, wasn't it?"

Remus nodded, once. "There. Now you know. Happy?" His face was anguished.

Harry blinked. He hadn't meant to make Remus so upset; he had only wanted to know. Harry threw himself against his uncle's chest, wrapping his skinny arms around the man's neck and burying his face in Remus' jumper.

Remus held Harry back, rubbing circles on the dark-haired boy's back. "Oh, Harry. It's all right," he comforted, as though Harry were the one who needed it. Still, Remus seemed to thrive on caring for others, so Harry let him have the illusion.

"Have you ever visited him?" Harry asked as he settled back onto his own side of the couch a moment later. "In Azkaban?"

"No," Remus answered flatly, and turned the volume of the Omnivision up, signalling the end of his cooperation.

Harry watched absently as the tattooed wizard's gelatinous and semi-sentient creation _glorped_ onto the pink-Mohawked witch's flaming omelette and swallowed it, but he couldn't so much as chuckle even when the judges got a face full of exploding blue goo. Harry's mind was set on Remus' problem, and the gears of his brain were clicking away.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

The day before Harry was to return to Azkaban, Remus surprised Harry by inviting Neville Longbottom over, with the excuse that Harry must be lonely, since there were so few other children to play with on Azkaban. Harry felt this forced socialization was a bit presumptuous, but he didn't mind Neville, really, so he went along without complaining too much.

When he went down to meet the other boy at the apparation grounds, Harry was both pleased and irked to encounter Lady sunning herself atop a nearby boulder.

"Ssso, you finally turned up," he observed, arms folded.

"Stop blocking the sssun, you third-classss tree," she mumbled, turning over to expose her belly to the light.

Harry just rolled his eyes and lifted her to his shoulders. Lady could be a trial, but who would he sharpen his repartee against without her?

There was a crack, the sound of air being abruptly forced to make way, and Neville appeared, clutching his grandmother's arm. The boy had put on a little height since Harry had seen him last, a few months before, but he was still carrying his baby fat, and also that slightly hunted look that Harry always seemed to inspire in his former schoolmates.

"Hi, Neville," Harry greeted, sticking his hands into his pockets as Mrs Longbottom gave him a sharp looking-over, snake and all. There was someone else with them, Harry noticed, as a girl with white-blonde hair and wide blue eyes emerged from behind Neville's grandmother. She was a wisp of a girl. Harry was reminded of a dandelion seed blowing in the wind.

"Harry, this is Luna Lovegood," Mrs Longbottom introduced, shoving the tiny blonde forward. "She lives near us in Ottery St. Catchpole. Luna, this is Harry Potter. He's the Boy-Who-Lived."

Harry scowled and combed his fringe over his scar. "You didn't go to the day school," he observed. He thought he'd known all the children in Ottery St. Catchpole, but he must have missed one.

"I know I didn't," the girl observed, without any of the wary suspicion Harry was accustomed to receiving from other children. Luna seemed pleased to be there. It was refreshing. Her eyes drifted down to the collar of Harry's shirt. "You've got a snake wrapped 'round you."

"I know I have," Harry replied in kind, stroking Lady's smooth scales. "She's my familiar."

Mrs Longbottom cleared her throat and shot the snake a look of frank disgust. "Yes, well, have a good time, dearies. I'll be back at seven." With a pop, she was gone.

"Er, hello, H-Harry," Neville managed, looking grey and nauseous as he always did near Harry. Harry sighed and grimaced at his sometime friend.

"All right, let's get you in the house, Neville, and you can just lie down until dinner," Harry decided. Neville groaned in a combination of gratitude and queasiness.

"What's the matter, Neville?" Luna asked, concerned, as she and Harry guided Neville into Remus' cottage. "It wasn't Daddy's gulping plimpy stew, was it? Goodness only knows what he _really_ used."

Harry, who had heard tell of Xenophilius Lovegood's propensity to invent new taxonomies, chuckled along with Luna before explaining, "It's me, I'm afraid. The sight of me makes Neville vomit."

"Ah," Luna murmured, nodding her head as though this made perfect sense. "I have an aunt who vomits at the sight of me." She paused. "Although, that might be because she's had the Regurgitating Gurgles since 1983."

Harry snorted. He wasn't actually sure whether the girl was joking, but she was funny either way.

"It does make for rather awkward family dinners," Luna continued placidly.

"It's not so much the sight of you," Neville explained as he reclined on the sofa in front of the Omnivision. "It's the nearness. I get a sort of chill, on the inside, and everything goes a bit wavy, like being on a boat."

Harry backed away, looking a bit forlorn. He might have been friends with Neville, if it weren't for that. _If only I knew how to turn it off_, he thought, biting his lip.

"Well, I don't feel anything odd," said Luna brightly, taking Harry by his coral-pierced hand. The touch of her slim, cool fingers startled him. "C'mon, Harry, let's go play!" she sang, and skipped out the door with him in tow.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Later on, after Harry and Luna had been swimming and played hide-and-seek, Remus got out the photo album for something to do, and Harry sat on the porch with Luna and showed her some of his favourite memories. He had discovered over the course of the afternoon that the girl was easily as quick-witted as Harry, and he quite enjoyed her company.

"Oh, and here's where Charlie turned Ron's nose into a trunk—ah, he's hiding again." Harry turned the page. "And here's me at the Magical Menagerie feeding the Chinese Fireball…and here's me and Lady showing Dad where it says in the Code of Magical Britain that even kids are allowed to keep familiars…I had Remus take that one just in case…"

"Snakes must be interesting to talk to," Luna observed, reaching up to pet Lady, who was draped around Harry's neck. The insufferable creature had been dead asleep all afternoon.

"Not really," Harry answered, before he had time to think better. "Er, because I can't understand them, of course," he hastily added.

Luna laughed in a polite but wooden manner, as though Harry had made a joke that wasn't very funny.

"And here's me and Dad at Florean Fortescue's…"

"Why do you keep calling him 'Dad'?" Luna inquired, turning her large, luminous eyes on Harry.

Harry glanced at her askance. "Because he's my dad, of course."

Luna looked puzzled, but nodded politely. Harry frowned. He closed the photo album and set it on the coffee table.

"You're better at it than I am," Luna remarked after a moment in which they simply enjoyed the warm summer air and the sound of the wind in the trees.

"Better at what?" Harry asked idly.

"Lying," Luna replied, quirking a mischievous smile at him.

Harry's stomach dropped. He had been so close to making a friend.

"It's all right," Luna told him gently, still smiling. "I don't like to tell people about the odd things I can do, either."

"You couldn't possibly be as _odd_ as I am," Harry muttered bitterly.

Luna laughed. She covered her eyes with her fingers in a strangely ritualistic gesture, and took a deep breath. Then she exhaled. "You were bitten by a salty fang," she pronounced, "and a bear healed you." She frowned. "A one-eyed bear," she added. Then she let her hands drop and looked at Harry curiously. "Does it mean anything?"

Harry was speechless for a moment. "Yes," he answered, when his wits had returned. "It…how…?"

Luna shrugged. "I just _know_ things. My Mum did, too, but…she's gone now."

"You're a Seer," Harry realized.

Luna nodded. "Sometimes I let things slip without meaning to. It gets me into trouble."

"I think it's brilliant," said Harry admiringly. "Still not as odd as me, though." She shoved his shoulder, and Harry chuckled. "Can you See things purposely? Can you tell me the muggle lottery numbers?"

Luna made a face. "I can see the future if I try, but it gives me a headache, and I never know what I'll get. It's totally random, just—you know, places where it's going to rain, and whether so-and-so's baby will be a boy or a girl. Nothing important. The past is much better. Because it's already settled, I suppose."

"Does it always come out all—poetic?" Harry asked curiously. "Is it just the words, or do you really _see_ things, like on the Omnivision?"

Luna's lips pursed, and she was slow to answer. "It's like dreaming. Sometimes there are images, or sounds or even smells, but most of the time I just _know_ things. Sometimes I only sense an emotion. Like when I try to See my Mum. I get this warm fuzzy feeling like I used to feel when she hugged me." Luna trailed off, staring into the distance with a melancholy look.

"That must be nice," Harry offered. He only said it to fill up the silence, but the words came out tinged with jealousy, and he was startled to realize that he _was_ jealous. He could not remember even a single embrace from his mother.

"I could try to See her for you," Luna offered, intuiting his thoughts. "Or your dad. Your real one, I mean."

Harry blinked. Now _that_ was an idea. If he could find out who his real dad was, maybe he could find out how to control whatever it was that made Neville sick. Surely Harry must have inherited that from his father?

"Could you…could you See who he is? My real dad? Mum never told anyone."

Luna's face pinched in sympathy. "That's dreadful. I won't know until I try, but that does make it harder. The more I already know about what I'm trying to See, the easier it is. Do you know anything about him? Even just the colour of his hair, or where he's from?"

Harry's face darkened, like a cloud passing over the sun. "The only thing I know is that he…" He paused, not certain he wanted anyone else to know how he had been conceived. On the other hand, what if Luna saw the worst that Harry feared? "It was an accident," Harry said around a lump in his throat. "Some kind of magical accident…she didn't…it's wasn't…voluntary. You might not want to See that."

Luna's eyes widened, but then she lifted her chin stubbornly, and covered her eyes. Harry felt a rush of gratitude and affection for the blonde girl. There was a long silence while Luna's brows furrowed the way Harry's did when he was practicing his magic. Harry closed his eyes and waited in breathless anticipation, head bowed as if praying. That was why he didn't notice it at first.

A minute, no more, had passed, before Luna made a sound. It was not the words of prophecy, however, but a high, pained whimper. Harry's head whipped up, searching her face. Her fingers were still pressed to her eyes, but the knuckles were bloodless with pressure, now, and she was trembling. Harry stared, wide-eyed and frozen. Something terrible was about to happen.

Luna's entire body shuddered, and a strangled shriek issued from her grimacing mouth. She twisted and writhed as though trying to throw something off, but her fingers remained firmly over her eyes. Then those delicate little spindles that had grasped Harry's hand so firmly, and rekindled within him the hope of companionship, hooked into the shape of claws, and began to scrabble at her eyes.

"No! Luna," he cried, seizing her wrists and trying to stop her from scratching her eyes out. She fought him like a wild cat, and Harry was afraid to use too much force. The thought of trying his magic did not even occur to him. "Uncle Remus!" he shouted desperately. "UNCLE REMUS!"

Luna threw her head back, maddened eyes dripping with blood, and screamed at the top of her lungs into the sky.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Remus, naturally, insisted on accompanying Harry on the boat ride back to Azkaban. They spent most of the trip in silence, the rough spray and sheeting rain seeming to mirror their moods.

"You're sure you don't know what she was trying to see?" Remus asked for the umpteenth time as he tossed Harry's bags on to the weathered wooden jetty on Azkaban.

"I don't know," Harry answered, and by that time he was so exasperated by having answered the same question a hundred times that the lie sounded quite realistic. When Luna had woken at St. Mungo's, her memories of the entire day had been wiped away, and Harry had been too horrified by the sight of her red, ravaged eyes to admit that she'd been trying to see his real father.

All Harry could think was that something about his father was frightful enough to scar a mind as smart, brave, and kind as Luna's. Absurdly grotesque visions of dripping tentacles and eyes on stalks floated before his mind's eye, and he pushed them away, but the fear that he was conceived in a fiendishly gruesome act of violence was not so easy to shake. Thinking of it made him want to cry. How terrible it must have been for his mum, first being raped, and then being reminded of it every day by Harry's mere existence.

"I'll see you in three weeks, then, I suppose," Remus said, smiling at Harry a little wanly, and hugging him. "And I won't say anything about your—er—new _accessory_—for now. But you _must_ stay in the village from now on, Harry."

"Thank you," Harry answered, surprised. He had completely forgotten about his coral focus, in the wake of Luna's attack. "I'll try."

Remus favoured him with an exasperated but tolerant look. "For the gods' sakes, at _least_ stay away from the cliffs."

"I will," Harry lied, hugging Remus again to hide the brittleness of his smile. Harry's face kept wrinkling up of its own accord, as though his eyebrows were trying to cling to each other.

Remus sighed and shook his head.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

In the following weeks, when Harry wasn't practicing his magic, he spent his days exploring the island and the cliffs more than ever. He was restless, incapable of sitting still. He often took Lady with him, though he never spoke to her too close to the village. She wasn't thrilled to be back in the cold and salt, but it was nice for Harry to have someone to talk to, even if that someone never let him have the last word.

Harry worked on his classes, too, sometimes simply to distract himself from his brooding thoughts, and he even visited the warden's children when he was truly desperate. They were as unpleasant as the man himself, which took some doing, frankly. Three girls with mouse-brown ringlets, all younger than Harry, who thought calling him names and chucking things at him would somehow convince him to behave the way they wanted. Sadly, it usually worked. That was how he found himself the victim of their mad hairdressing schemes, and, once, as the groom in a faux wedding with their cat in a baby's bonnet as the bride.

The Warden's wife, Mrs Oakes, was a genial woman, whose biscuits and pastries alone were worth the pain of removing sticky beads and rubber bands from his hair. But she seemed to think Harry should spend all his time there, as she couldn't imagine any boy wanting to be alone all day, and while it was pleasant to spend time with someone gentle and caring, Harry was cautious of becoming too attached to a mother figure. Losing one had been plenty, as far as he was concerned. Besides, the woman couldn't be all there, or she would never have married Oakes.

Harry's classes, although they did not receive the attention they once might have, proved to be both interesting and informative. His favourite was the history class. Reading about kings and queens and necromancers and Druids and the old gods was just like a novel. His least favourite class, on the other hand, was Law, not because it was badly taught, but because he dreaded what new revelation each lesson would bring. Some of the Ministry's policies really were appalling.

Harry couldn't even blame a culture of stagnation for it, as many of the worst policies, such as the Werewolf Registry or the placement of wizard orphans in muggle orphanages, were quite modern. If someone high up in government were deliberately trying to alienate as many subsections of the population as possible, they could not have done a finer job. Harry entertained fantasies of charging into the Ministry and overturning desks, and simultaneously vowed to stay as far away as possible from that cesspit of corruption.

But most of Harry's time was spent simply wandering the island. He mapped all its slopes and ridges, its every rock and cliff. When the tide was high, the scanty beaches were underwater, but sometimes Harry went down to the water anyway, and sat on a rock a little way out in the surf, dangling his legs in the brine and staring out to sea. Fish nibbled at his toes, and Harry froze their hearts so as to watch their souls dissolve. That drew bigger fish, and he froze them, too. Once he saw a merman, with white scales and a white trident, watching him from beneath the waves. Harry left him alone.

Between exploring, evading the Oakes family, visiting regularly with Bjorn, and school work, Harry was able for several weeks to keep his mind for the most part off what had happened to Luna and the fact that she was still in St. Mungo's. But each night when he lay in bed, he heard her shrieks again, and he often found himself returning to the little strand of beach where he'd made his bargain with the sea.

When he lay with his feet in the water and let his mind drift, Harry could almost hear a susurrating voice in the crash and hiss of the waves—a voice that spoke to the darkest part of him, the part that didn't _care_ what happened to Luna, as long as she gave him the knowledge he craved.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

_September 19, 1990, M.E._

_No. 14 Azkaban Village_

_Azkaban Island_

_North Sea_

_Dear Luna,_

_I just heard you were out of Mungo's, and I wanted to write to say how horribly, dreadfully sorry I am about what happened that day. Are you okay? I visited you in hospital, but you were sleeping. Are your eyes better? I have enclosed a get-well present. I hope you like it. It's a shell I found on the beach here. Useless, but quite pretty. I have loads of them, so I suppose it's not a very good present, but they haven't exactly got shops here. (My dad's a guard at Azkaban, and I live on the island. I told you that before, but I don't know if you remember.)_

_I'm planning to catch a gannet and get him to bring this to you, since they read all the owl post around here before sending it off, which is bloody annoying. Short-sighted policy on an island teeming with birds, eh? You should see these blokes nesting on the cliffs here. They blanket the rocks from top to bottom, and it's a wonder their chicks don't all fall in and drown. They look quite fetching from far off, with the white body and black-tipped wings, but when you get up close you see how funny-looking their faces are and they seem quite silly. You should see them hunt, though—they shoot into the surf like arrows. If you like the bird, feel free to keep it since there are thousands here._

_Anyway, I don't suppose you remember anything about that night, do you? I know they said you had forgotten the whole day, but I thought perhaps that was just something you said, like when I tell my Dad I haven't been doing anything I shouldn't because it's just easier that way. Well—I'm sorry about what happened anyway. Let me know if you do remember anything._

_Sincerely hoping the sight of me doesn't give you the Gurgy Gurgles,_

_Harry Azrael Potter_

_PS – I told the gannet to give this to you when you're by yourself; could you let me know if he does? It'd be good to know how smart they are._

_PPS – Give Neville my regards._

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

_September 20, 1990_

_Lovegood Lookout_

_Ottery St. Catchpole_

_Dear Harry,_

_Your bird did bring me the letter when I was alone, but he also crashed into the window and nearly broke his neck, poor dear. I'd say he's smart, but a bit near-sighted. He looks a little like me with the yellow on his head and the big eyes. My eyes look a little funny, too, now. They sort of stick out and water constantly, but they don't hurt anymore. I think I'd better keep the gannet here and look after him. Thank you for the lovely shell, too._

_My memories have come back in bits and pieces, so I do remember meeting you and playing together, but I think there are gaps. I don't remember what I was trying to See when I had the attack—I guess I didn't tell you? I remember we were looking at photographs, and there was one of Ron with an elephant's trunk for a nose, and the next thing I remember, everything got very dark and cold. I felt as though all the light had gone out of the world and it would never return. Then I started to remember terrible things._

_Neville said you made him feel like that once, by accident. It sounds a little like a dementor. I don't care, though. If you did do it, I know it wasn't on purpose. People think my powers are strange, too. I used to tell them the things I Saw, but most of the time they either didn't believe me or thought I was wicked for spying. You will still talk to me, though, won't you Harry? I don't know when I'll be well enough to visit, but we can write, and we'll both be at Hogwarts. I'll be a year behind you, I think._

_Hopefully,_

_Luna L. Lovegood_

_PS – I told Neville you wanted to regard him, but it seemed to make him feel ill. Do you suppose it's an early warning sign of the Gurgles?_

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Harry scowled at his latest letter as he rolled it up and tied it to the leg of a newly acquired gannet. He cast an impervious charm with a wave of his coral-pierced hand, and then touched the gannet's head, concentrating.

"Take this to Luna Lovegood, at Lovegood Lookout, Ottery St. Catchpole, Devon, England. But don't give it to her until she's alone, okay? And don't fly into the window."

The gannet looked into Harry's eyes for a moment, and then its head exploded in a shower of blood, bone, and brain. Harry cursed, cleaned himself with another wave of his hand, and snagged another bird. The cliffs on the far side of the island from the prison were crawling with the funny white birds and their nests of grass and sticks. They were easy to catch when Harry loosed a bit of his powers on them; they shivered and fell down just like the children on the playground had that day when they'd all laughed at Harry.

Harry watched the gannet's brilliant wisp of soul dissipate into the surrounding air and wondered for at least the hundredth time what made souls the size they were. Why were the souls of whales bigger than those of fish? Why were those of insects so tiny as to be almost invisible? Why was a crup's soul larger than a dog's? A kneazle's larger than a cat's? A wizard's larger than a muggle's? Why was a mermaid's smaller than a wizard's, but a werewolf's larger?

There were so many, many questions he wanted answered, but some were not so easy to put into words. And there were questions too thorny to bear thinking on, lest they cut him. So Harry did his best to wonder less and plan more.

Naturally, Harry had been planning to meet a dementor ever since stepping foot onto Azkaban. He'd wanted to meet one for as long as he'd known about them. But never before had he felt that he _needed _to meet one. He had waited—hoped—that Luna might remember something, but that avenue was closed to him now. He had no recourse but to seek information from the one creature he knew with powers like his own. What Luna had seen, the source of Harry's abilities, it all came down to the same thing, and Harry needed to understand, before anyone else got hurt by coming into contact with him.

_Dad should set his patronus to guard against me_, Harry thought forlornly, as he released the next gannet, whose head was thankfully intact. _I'm as bad as a dementor._

That was another question lying in wait to sink its claws into him. Why couldn't Harry produce a patronus? He had been trying off and on with increasing intensity since he first began practicing magic, but he never produced even a wisp of silver. It was arrogant, he knew, to assume that he should be able to perform a NEWT level spell without even a day of formal training, but he'd done so many incredible things already. And Bjorn had been insistent that even a near-Squib could produce a patronus with the proper concentration and happy memory.

Harry was certain he'd wrung every drop of happiness from his memories already, but he dutifully focused himself and tried again as he started down the meandering footpath toward the village. This was the one piece in his plan to meet a dementor that just _would not_ fit into place.

_Mum. Long, silky red hair, flying in the breeze and strewn with bright autumn leaves. A smile on her face that could light up the whole sky. Eyes full of hope and love._

Harry felt something inside him unclench at the image. He continued, feeding all the half-remembered, half-imagined ideas he had of her into his magic, until a surge of emotion crested inside him, and he then diverted it down his arm and through the coral in his palm. The magic blasted from his hand and—disappeared.

Harry snarled in frustration and took a moment to calm himself. The day before, he had flung his brand new copy of _Confronting the Faceless_ against the wall so hard that the binding had split in two. He wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry when he was able to repair it on only the third try. Obviously he could do magic—in fact, he was brilliant at it, even if he did say so himself, so why not _this_ magic?

"Try incanting it," he muttered, though he knew it was hopeless. Ministry-approved incantations were nothing more than a focusing aid on anything other than a Ministry-designed wand, or so Bjorn had relayed.

Harry calmed himself with the memory of floating in green light, then called to mind all his most beloved memories: his mother, his father, Uncle Remus, even Neville and Luna. It was exhausting, opening himself to such powerful emotion over and over again. He felt as quivery and defenceless as a shell-less lobster afterwards, but he persevered nevertheless. The magic shot down his arm like a bolt of lightning, leaving the flesh tingling and a faint whiff of ozone in the air. But when the magic shot out into the air, it simply vanished.

Harry made a strangled little growling sound and yanked at his hair. He was approaching the village, now, and couldn't afford to be seen doing any magic. He saw only sleeping souls, however, recognizable by their peaceful blue and purple hues and their markedly slow rate of pulsation. So Harry centred himself once more, calling on his oldest memory—swaying in a gentle sea of green light.

Just then, a glowing silver phantasm rounded the corner of a house. Harry glared at the patronus, which was took the form of a hare. Just the sight of what he couldn't achieve was infuriating. The joyful memories he'd gathered shifted suddenly. In place of his father's strong arms hugging him tight, he felt the slap of James' palm and the crack of the wall against his skull. In place of Lily's laughing green eyes, he saw dead, glazed orbs staring out of a grey, stiffened face. In place of Remus' gentle and understanding smile, he saw the feral rage the werewolf had directed at Bjorn.

Fury and spite crested in Harry's chest, and he rode at the top of the wave. Without thinking, he made the gesture he'd made so fruitlessly a hundred times before, aiming his coral focus at the object of his jealousy.

Something immense and black shot from Harry's hand like a bullet, and he was bowled over by the recoil. By the time he'd scrambled to his feet again, the spirit he'd summoned was savaging the silver hare. Before Harry's startled eyes, the patrolling patronus was clawed and chewed into ribbons and scraps of light that dissipated in the air like a passing soul.

Harry stared, shocked motionless, at what his rage, hatred, and envy had produced. It resembled a patronus in some ways. Its outline was blurred and wispy, as though it were made of flames, and it took the form of a beast: a stout raven about the height of Harry's knee. Yet in other ways it was as unlike a patronus as a corpse is unlike a person. It was coal black, all except for its eyes and the outlines of its body, which glowed fiery red like lava.

The bird ceased pecking the wispy shreds of the defeated silver patronus and turned one beady eye on Harry. For a moment, Harry held his breath, wary of the creature. Then, cautiously, he held out his arm. The raven took wing, leaving glowing red trails of energy in the air behind it, and settled as lightly as a feather on Harry's wrist.

"What are you?" Harry breathed. The raven cocked its head and opened its hooked beak at him, but no sound issued forth. It seemed to Harry that the bird was looking into the blackest depths of him, where the forces that had summoned it still lingered. Harry hung his head in frustration and shame. "Go away," he murmured. "Just go away."

But the raven only cocked its head the other way and stared deep into Harry's eyes. It seemed to mock him.

"Go away!" Harry hissed, making to shove the bird from his arm. His hand went right through the creature, which dissolved into whirling ribbons of black and red magical energy before disappearing entirely.

Harry looked around him, confirming that no one had seen the exchange, before trudging wearily the rest of the way home.


	8. The Age of Justice

o─-o─-o─-─-─-─ **WITHOUT THORN THE ROSE** ─-─-─-─o-─o-─o

Summary: When Lily died she left a broken James to raise a stranger's son. When a drunken act of violence sees James demoted to prison guard, Harry is inducted into the mysteries of Azkaban, and begins to solve the mysteries of his own existence, as well. SLASH. AH/AU. Some RL/SB, RL/JP, future LV/HP in sequels.s

Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling.

Warnings: SLASH. That means men. Having sex. With each other. Not in every chapter, but in a few.

Notes: So, lately I've basically been writing and posting a second draft of this story. I really was finished with it before and was totally planning to just post what I had, but when I started to get lots of positive responses, and I realized how much improvement it could stand, I really couldn't resist. I hope you guys are enjoying it, but, whether you are or not, I'm very happy with this work.

o─-─-─-─-─ 8. THE AGE OF JUSTICE ─-─-─-─-─o

"So, can I see it?" Harry continued, fixing James with an expectant stare.

"Huh?" the curly-haired man grunted, shovelling food into his mouth.

James had lost weight since they had moved to Azkaban, and his golden tan had faded noticeably, but, although he still slept more than seemed healthy, Harry's father seemed to have reached an equilibrium that more or less allowed him to function. This precarious balance, however, did not leave the man much time for his son. Harry was grateful for it—he could never have gotten up to half as much mischief, otherwise—but he missed the rare moments of bonding with his father. And if it had been difficult asking James serious questions before, it was nearly impossible now.

"Your patronus. Can I see it?" Harry asked, raking his shaggy fringe back impatiently.

"Why in Merlin's name do you want to see my patronus so badly?" James questioned around a mouthful of eggs.

Harry had come prepared with excuses, several of which happened to be the truth. "I'm trying to learn to summon one wandlessly, but I'm not having any luck. I thought maybe if I could see how it's done…"

James scoffed. "Try all you like. I doubt you could do it wandless even if you were fully trained."

Harry scowled. "Can you?"

"No, and I was one of the strongest in my year at Hogwarts. Only Lily and—and one other person—were stronger."

"You mean Sirius Black?" Harry asked irritably, then winced as he thought better. James had thrown cutlery at him the last time he had mentioned their infamous cousin.

James' head whipped up and he regarded his son with a stranger's eyes for a moment. "What do you know about him?" he asked warily.

"Er," Harry replied, raking his fringe back over his face, "Uncle Remus may have told me some things."

"Did he," James muttered sarcastically, wiping up the last of his eggs with his toast. "Uncle Remus doesn't need your pestering questions making him remember things we'd all rather forget."

"I didn't pester him!" Harry defended automatically. He frowned, trying to remember. "Well, maybe I did a bit. I just wanted to know why he wouldn't go out with you."

"Harry Azrael Potter!" James snapped. "Remus' love life is none of your business."

"Maybe you should have thought of that before you had loud, weird sex with him while I was in the house." This comment popped out before Harry could stop it, and he was darting for the attic ladder before James even had time to redden with anger. "It's not my fault if you won't put up silencing charms," Harry called, scurrying up the ladder.

"Harry, wait," James said sharply, as he came to the foot of the ladder. "This is not negotiable. Don't go sticking your nose in like you always do."

Harry ground his teeth, irritated. "I won't—if you show me your patronus," he replied rudely.

James rolled his eyes and muttered something unintelligible. Harry knew he'd won when James sent his best death glare up the ladder.

"Fine," James answered, "but no more questions about _that man._"

Harry nodded grudgingly.

James waved his wand silently, and a silver stag burst from the tip, making a graceful leap to the floor. Harry scrambled down the ladder, watching the patronus curiously. He hadn't got a chance to examine Remus' or Bjorn's patronuses up close. Harry had read that the sight of a patronus was supposed to fill the beholder with serenity, but as he looked into the eyes of his father's stag, he felt instead a strange, alien animosity.

Harry reached out to touch the silvery creature cautiously. He wanted to sense the emotions that had fuelled the spell. But when his hand touched the stag's ear, the flickering silver energy burned like a hot coal, and Harry's fingers blistered. Harry leapt back with an involuntary shout, sucking his fingers to relieve the burning. The stag sprang back, too, but within seconds it rallied and charged, antlers down to gore its enemy. Harry, trapped in a corner of the living room, could do nothing but shout and fling his arms up defensively.

Burning strikes like a rain of magma fell on Harry's upraised arms, and waves of invisible, accidental magic poured from Harry's coral focus in response, but although his magic shook the walls and rattled the windows, the dreadful stag was undeterred. Harry, half out of his mind with terror, pain, and shock, was certain he was about to die. Baring his teeth in a rictus snarl, he balled up all of his fear and hatred for the creature, and fed it into a blast of concentrated magic.

An inky shadow limned with fire-red light exploded into being, shielding Harry with outstretched wings. Harry lifted his head, eyes streaming with pained tears, and watched with victorious satisfaction as his sinister creation savaged the stag, pecking its eyes and raking furrows in its flanks until the silver beast dissolved into ribbons of light that faded like a dying soul.

As his fear and defensive anger faded, so too did Harry's shadowy raven, until the house was still and silent once more. Only then did Harry look up and see James watching him in wide-eyed shock. The man was as white as a sheet, and his wand, clenched in one fist, was trembling. Harry's eyes fixed on the wand, then lifted, slowly, to meet his father's eyes, silently accusing. _Why did you let it attack me?_

Some unseen shutter closed behind James' eyes, and his gaze became abruptly distant. Without a word, he turned and entered his bedroom, shutting the door firmly behind him. Harry, who was still crying from pain, slumped back against the wall and half-laughed, half-sobbed, until the hysteria passed, and he was left empty.

He went to the bathroom, raided the potions cabinet with trembling hands, and sloshed half the numbing solution into the wash basin before he managed to get it onto his blistered and peeling hands. There was plenty of healing balm, and Harry rubbed it on awkwardly, since both hands were numb now. When he tried to wrap gauze over his palms, however, he fumbled the roll. It fell into the chamber pot and was vanished instantly.

"Gods _damn_ it!" Harry shouted, and kicked the empty pot over, sending it rolling into the wall. He leaned heavily on the vanity for a moment, trying to calm his racing heart. "It's fine," he whispered to himself. "It's fine, it's okay, it's all right. I can fix this."

Harry looked up into the mirror and saw that his lips were blue and his lashes white with frost. There was a surge of accidental magic, and the mirror shattered. Harry could not bring himself to care.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

"Did you know?" Harry asked resentfully, watching the glowing red trails that his raven left in the air above Bjorn's boat.

The one-eyed man sipped his tea calmly. "Know what? That you could produce such a magnificent spell?"

Harry huffed, annoyed. "That patronuses hate me. You dismissed yours before it could touch me, remember?"

Bjorn turned his single blue-grey eye on Harry and considered him. "I suppose I did sense something a little…unusual. But not hatred. If anything, I think they fear you."

"Why? What have I ever done to them?"

"You said you attacked one in fit of a pique. Perhaps they sense that."

Harry sighed gustily, and flopped back onto the bench outside the hold, slopping tea over his newly-healed hands. Bjorn had done his best, but the healing had been left too long, and there were flat, silvery crescents on Harry's fingers and palms now, where the curved hooves of James' stag had struck him.

"So what am I supposed to do? I can't meet a dementor without any protection. What if it tries to Kiss me?"

"Why do you assume you can't make a patronus?" Bjorn asked with puzzlement.

Harry spluttered, and gestured wordlessly at his ethereal black and red raven. It spiralled down and alit on Harry's outstretched arm.

"Is that supposed to mean something?" Bjorn asked, unimpressed. "Every man has a bit of light and a bit of dark in him. That's simply a fact of life you had best make your peace with."

"You don't think he's…I don't know—ominous? Like an _anti_-patronus?"

Bjorn tilted his head, and reached out to stroke the bird's head. "I think you should give him a name."

Harry huffed. "That's a bit mawkish, isn't it? It's just a spell."

"You don't care for him?" the burly, greying north-man asked, eyeing Harry speculatively.

Harry made a face. "It's not a _him_, it's an _it_. I'm not going to go 'round calling him Bob or something, like we're mates."

"He's a part of you," Bjorn replied, continued to caress the bird's evanescent black feathers. Harry lowered his head gloomily. "That's reason enough to love him. I call mine Orvar—means arrow."

"_Yours_ isn't made from hatred."

Bjorn touched Harry's forehead gently with a large, callused finger, and flicked the boy's fringe back, revealing Harry's despondent expression.

"What? You think hatred's all you've got to work with?"

Harry scowled, embarrassed at having his emotions discussed.

Bjorn snorted. "Please. As hatred goes, this isn't even particularly potent." He lifted the raven from Harry's arm, and settled it on his own shoulder. "You haven't really known darkness until you've killed a man." Bjorn paused, watching with interest as the black raven dissolved into non-being. "You haven't, have you?"

Harry looked at Bjorn askance. "What, offed someone? Of course not. Have _you_?"

Bjorn sank down next to Harry and looked out to sea, saying nothing for a moment. Harry filed away that exchange for future pestering.

"You're overthinking this," Bjorn said finally. "Just because you haven't succeeded in a spell yet is no reason to think you never will."

The grizzled north-man drained his tea and set the cup aside. Then he pulled his large knife from his belt, holding it aloft.

"Look. It's not a difficult spell—not with our kind of magic, anyway. Gather your happiest memories, and hold them in mind while you focus on what you want: a protector from dark creatures. Then just…set it free."

Bjorn flicked the knife's tip forward, and his great silver sea-eagle burst into being. Harry jumped, flattening himself backward against the hold, but the creature did not seem to notice him, and merely contented itself with a mockery of hunting amongst the waves.

"You think I haven't tried that a hundred times?" Harry asked, sharply, glaring at the silver bird.

"I think you don't really want to succeed."

"Now you're just insulting me," Harry snapped, acidly.

"I think you see yourself as a dark creature."

Harry said nothing, staring fixedly at the planks of the deck and fidgeting with his tea-cup.

"Am I right?" Bjorn asked gently.

Harry shrugged stiffly.

"You're not," Bjorn pronounced, and poked Harry in the side of the head without warning.

Harry slapped the man's bear-like hand away. "You don't know that," he growled. "My real father could be a dementor, for all I know."

Bjorn's face convulsed in an odd way, as Harry watched from the corner of his eye, and for a moment Harry's stomach fluttered with trepidation. Then Bjorn broke into peels of laughter that had him wiping helpless tears from his eyes.

Harry edged away and gawked at the man. "There's something wrong with you, you know that?"

Bjorn just nodded agreeably, still chuckling.

"I really could be half dementor. You don't know."

Bjorn made a murmur of acknowledgement, between a couple of lingering chuckles.

"You think that's funny?" Harry demanded, leaping to his feet. "My Mum could have been raped by a dementor."

Bjorn doubled over and stuffed his fist against his mouth, fighting back another surge of hilarity.

"That's not funny!" Harry shouted, and hurled his tea-cup, still half-full of tepid liquid, at the man's scar-split face. Bjorn vanished the cup in mid-air with a lackadaisical wave of his knife, and tried without much success to adopt a penitent look.

Harry stamped his foot, and went to the rail, trying to ignore the man. After a moment, when his laughter had faded, Bjorn came and joined him, resting a heavy hand on Harry's shoulder. Harry grudgingly allowed it to remain there a moment before shrugging it off.

"Ah, _fugleunge_. I don't mean to say I don't sympathize with you, or your mother," Bjorn explained apologetically. "It's just—how can I say it? If the gods are having a laugh at your expense, the best thing you can do is laugh along. It hurts less that way."

Harry glowered. "You're mad. And kind of an arse-hole."

"I'm sorry. Please don't hold it against me."

Harry harrumphed.

"Look. A peace offering," Bjorn said, holding his arm out toward his patronus.

"No!" Harry yelped, backing up as the creature swooped toward them. "Really, don't!"

"It's all right," Bjorn answered soothingly, as the eagle landed on Bjorn's wrist with a flap of wings that spread as wide as the north-man was tall. "He won't hurt you."

Harry paused warily on the verge of jumping off the boat. "Then why did you dismiss it—him—before?"

Bjorn pursed his lips. "Instinct, I suppose. But he's a part of me. He can't do anything that I don't let him."

Harry remembered, briefly, the sight of James standing, white-faced, clutching his wand. A lump formed in his throat.

"Here," Bjorn said, holding out his hand. Harry approached, cautiously, and put his small, white hand into Bjorn's large, tan one.

An echo of something passed through Harry then, making him gasp. It was the tranquillity that he had once known, floating in swaying green light. Harry closed his eyes and bowed his head. Bjorn lifted Harry's hand, and pressed it against something that flickered like strong currents in water. It was hot against Harry's palm, but it was not a burning heat. It was the heat of a tight embrace, the heat of strong tea offered in friendship, the heat of tears shed for love.

Harry opened his eyes and gazed, wonderingly, at the sight of Bjorn's patronus rubbing its head against his palm. A smile spread slowly across his face, and some deep-seated tension seemed to ease within him.

"Now you do it," Bjorn prompted.

Harry bit his lip, uncertain. But, after a moment, he lifted his coral-pierced palm, and fed his memories of his mother into his magic, simultaneously concentrating on his desire for a creature to stave off the darkness. His memories were more wistful than joyful, but it was the best he could do, and it must have been enough, because a silver form burst from Harry's hand. It circled the deck once before returning to perch on Harry's wrist. Like Bjorn's patronus, its touch was hot, but not blistering.

"What is it?" Harry asked breathlessly.

"Pigeon," Bjorn answered, blithely.

"_Pigeon!_" Harry cried indignantly.

"Or a dove," Bjorn added, shrugging.

Harry glared. "It's a _dove_, and I'll hear no more on the subject."

"If you say so," Bjorn chuckled. "Rats with wings, that's what you south-landers call them, isn't it?"

Harry huffed, but after a moment, even he laughed a little. "Peace and war—Pax and Bello. That's what I'll call them," he announced.

Bjorn nodded approvingly.

"Can you show me how to send messages with them?" Harry asked. "Silent ones, if possible."

"I can try," Bjorn answered, with a roguish grin that made his scar-split face ripple and stretch gruesomely.

"And then I need to know everything you can tell me about the security measures at Azkaban," Harry continued.

Bjorn stared stone-faced at Harry for a moment, before tipping his head back and rumbling with laughter once more.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Harry waited on the little scrap of strand where he had received his coral, trying to calm his anxiety. The waves were rougher than usual, and the salty foam licked at his ankles when the breakers scrabbled up the sand. He had sent the message an hour ago with his anti-patronus raven, Bello, and had been waiting here ever since. He didn't know whether they would even understand the message, but he hoped. Harry had practiced the necessary spells with Bjorn, who seemed to find Harry's devious plans amusing, until he was more than ready, and then waited weeks longer, for the time to be right. Wary of sneaking out at night and of being seen during daylight, Harry had awaited the arrival of winter, when the sun made only a token appearance each day.

The perpetual night seemed to have depressed the already gloomy wizenguards further, but Harry felt more at home than ever. The sky was nearly always overcast, and this absence of moon and starlight allowed Harry to prowl the village as well as the island without being noticed. Lady, on the other hand, had taken to cuddling the heating stones that James had enchanted to keep the house cosy. She slept, mostly, and cursed Harry nonstop whenever she was awake. Rats and mice had become harder to find as the weather grew colder, and this did Harry no favours where his familiar was concerned.

Although it was only mid-afternoon, the sky was as dark as full midnight, and Harry had left the wan glow of the village far behind. Now he stood on the beach where he had been given a gift by the sea, and waited for the tide to turn. Above him, the clouds began to drift apart, revealing a moonless sky scattered with glittering pinpricks of light, and, in the centre of the sky, a swath so dense with them that it seemed to emit an undifferentiated glow.

Harry stared, and felt the tension flowing out of him. How many millennia had the light of those stars travelled, only to spend itself on his eyes? How many of those stars were gone now, existing only as memories carried by light? He toyed with the idea that perhaps the stars were actually great souls, massive as worlds, as galaxies, each on its own lonely orbit, beaming out the message of their existence into the uncaring void.

The ancients had believed the constellations were gods and heroes rendered undying¹, and Harry entertained the idea. Had they ascended as though the heavens were a throne, or had they been chased there? Had they fled the wickedness of men, hiding far from any human voices? Or had they simply lain down to sleep in the sky until they were needed once more?

Harry's breath began to frost, and he felt a chill at his back. The spell of the stars was broken, and his mind focused like a hawk on the here and now. He turned swiftly, and found himself a metre from a dark, looming figure, whose pitch black robes blotted out the stars.

Harry fisted his hands nervously, and felt his coral focus tingle with a little accidental magic brought on by nerves. He had decided not to summon his dove patronus, Pax, however, unless the dementor threatened him. The dementor was silent, and, although Harry knew it had no eyes, it seemed to watch him. Harry examined it closely in return, though he could not make out much with only the light of the stars.

The dementor itself was about the size of a human, but its sweeping robes and habitual levitation made it seem half again as tall. Its robes appeared to be made of cloth about its head and shoulders, yet the material faded to wisps of fluttering dark energy near the ground. It floated a metre above the sand, and its cowl was so deep that Harry could not see inside. All he could see of the body beneath the robe were two emaciated hands, white as a fish's belly. The thin layer of flesh clinging to those bones was emaciated and pocked with sores, and a stench wafted from the thing, as of rotting meat.

Harry was not repulsed, however, by the sight or smell, and he did not experience any of the misery or despair that dementors were supposed to radiate. On the contrary, he was elated that his plan had succeeded. And he was riveted by what he saw with his secret sense. Inside the skull, where the souls of all creatures normally reside, there was only a miniscule wisp of pulsing light.

There was another soul inside the dementor, however, a fully-sized one, for a wizard, located in the abdominal region. This soul was brilliant white and drifted gently as souls do just before they pass on, yet it remained in place, not dissolving. A dark excitement quivered in Harry's belly at the eerie sight. This was undoubtedly a soul that the dementor had snatched from the lips of a prisoner.

Harry cleared his throat roughly, tearing his eyes away and fixing them back on the cowl. "Thank you for coming," he forced out. "I wasn't sure if you would understand the message. Or if you would care."

The dementor was silent, its robe fluttering gently in the salty sea breeze.

"Can you understand human language?" Harry asked hopefully. He wasn't particularly skilful at communicating via patronus or anti-patronus.

The dementor shifted a little, and drew a rattling breath. Harry tensed, half-lifting his coral-pierced hand. Then the dementor spoke, in a voice that sounded as though it were being forced through a throat bloated and swollen with rot.

"We he-e-ear the call of the hu-u-ungry…" it croaked.

A delighted grin spread across Harry's face. He hadn't a clue what the words meant, but it didn't matter. They were words, and English ones, at that. He was _speaking_ with a dementor.

"Thank you for coming," he repeated. "I have so many questions. I don't know what I can give you in return, but I need your help…" Harry trailed off, biting his lip. He was a fool, he knew, relying on the charity of despair-sucking leeches, but he had nowhere else to turn.

"Tra-a-ade," the creature rasped.

"Trade what?" Harry asked eagerly. "What do you want? I'll give it if I can."

"Ta-a-aste."

Harry's head jerked back a little. "Er…did you say _taste_? What does that mean?"

The dementor shifted restlessly, and swooped suddenly closer. Harry inhaled sharply and stepped back as the cowl brushed his forehead. He could see inside it now. The creature's face was as emaciated and scarred as its hands. Where its eyes should have been, there was only smooth flesh, and its mouth was a gaping, hungry maw. Harry stared, fascinated. What _was _this thing? Was it born? Created? What was its purpose?

"What do you _mean_?" he repeated forcefully, staring not at its no-eyes but at the wisp of soul behind its forehead. "How do you taste? _What _do you taste?"

"Not fee-e-ed," it croaked agitatedly. "Only ta-a-aste…"

The dementor inhaled with a rattling, wet gasp, and Harry saw, to his shock and horror, tiny wisps of white light float from his mouth to the dementor's. His head spun, and grey fuzz intruded on the edges of his sight.

"No!" Harry bellowed in fear and anger. "Give it back!"

The dementor exhaled, and the specks of light flew back into Harry's mouth. The dizziness faded, but, for a moment, all he could do was blink and stare, so shocked was he.

"Don't _ever_ do that!" he shouted furiously, forgetting that he was not so far from the village, and that voices carried oddly in the fog.

"Only ta-a-aste…" the dementor said in its harsh, wet voice. "Not swa-a-allow…"

"You tasted without asking," Harry answered furiously. "So I reckon you owe me some answers now."

The dementor bowed its head slowly.

Harry licked his lips, the gears of his mind clicking and whirring. "How could a human have the powers of a dementor?" he demanded. "How is it that I can make people cold and suck away their joy and hope like a dementor?"

The dementor bobbed gently, its cloak rippling. "You hu-u-unger," it croaked. "You hu-u-unger for the lost half of your so-o-oul."

Harry felt the blood drain from his face. "_What?_ My soul…what?"

"Half your so-o-oul is missing."

Harry put a trembling hand to his forehead, above where his soul should have been, though he could not sense it. Even in a mirror, he had never been able to see his own soul. They were not literally made of light, after all; it only seemed that way to him. Harry had always known he was different, even dark, but to think that all this time he had been missing something so fundamental…he almost wished he had never found out, and, at the same time, he was furious that he hadn't known sooner. He swallowed thickly, but pressed on despite his horror.

"Was it a dementor that—that—tore my soul?" It required a force of will to get the words out.

"There are other wa-a-ays, and other pla-a-aces a so-o-oul may hide."

"All right," Harry answered tremulously. "But why does that give me powers?"

"We-e-e are the torn so-o-ouls…the Ki-i-issed ones…we hu-u-unger…hu-u-unger…"

"The kissed… Do you mean that you are someone who was Kissed by a dementor?"

The dementor bowed its head in agreement.

Harry hissed through his teeth, appalled. _What the _Prophet_ would make of this_…but of course he could never tell them.

"_You_ were once human?" he confirmed.

It bowed its head again.

"But how do you become…whatever you are? How do you have a mind, with only that little scrap of soul? Even dogs have more than that."

"So-o-oul is not mi-i-ind."

Harry pondered this, but stowed it away for later. He wanted to ask as much as he could while he had the dementor's attention.

"This Hunger—" Harry put a special emphasis on the word—"you're saying that it gives you powers? Like freezing things, and making people feel despair?"

"We fe-e-east on the so-o-ouls of men, and the so-o-ouls of objects alike," the dementor croaked.

"Objects? What do you mean?"

"We do not fre-e-eeze, only ste-e-eal warmth."

"But warmth isn't the same as a soul." Harry frowned, perplexed. "Is it?"

"Ta-a-astes the sa-a-ame."

Harry's teeth worried at his lip. Every answer only produced more questions.

"Is it because I died once? Is that when I lost part of my soul, and gained the Hunger?" But even before the dementor answered, Harry corrected himself. "No, that doesn't make sense. If dying was all it took, everyone would turn into a dementor. There must be something else…"

The dementor shifted side to side with a ripple of shadowy black robes. "Only tho-o-ose whose so-o-ouls are to-o-orn feel the hu-u-unger. Your so-o-oul bears ma-a-arks of violence."

Harry stared into space pensively, distantly noticing the tide rising around them. The breakers came halfway to his knees, now.

"I see. Can you ask your brothers? Ask if any of them tore my soul, and where the rest of it is?"

"For a ta-a-aste, I will a-a-ask."

Harry scowled. "Will it drive me mad, like a prisoner of Azkaban?"

The dementor made a gurgling, sticky noise. Harry wasn't sure if the sound was laughter or lip-smacking, nor which of those two would be more disturbing. "Only after ma-a-any hu-u-undreds of tastes."

Harry glared suspiciously, but nodded, once. "All right, then. One taste, but make it quick."

The dementor leaned forward, wrapping its cold, skeletal arms around Harry, and bent him backwards.

"Hey!" Harry yelped, shoving at its chest, which felt like nothing more than a cage of ribs. "Not like that!"

"Be sti-i-ill," the dementor croaked, and opened its mouth just above Harry's.

The dementor gasped in that death rattle again. Harry saw grey and black spots and went limp in the thing's arms. He was floating, not in green light, but in grey fog. His head spun, and a flickering vision appeared before him, oddly colourless, like a faded photograph projected against the bank of fog. Yet despite its threadbare quality, the vision engulfed Harry, until he forgot where he was, who he was, until the vision was all Harry knew or had ever known.

_She sat on her mother's lap, warm and comfortable, but she was hungry, and her frilly white dress was too hot. She whimpered and began to cry when her mother bounced her, until finally she squalled in futile protest. Her mother grew more and more agitated, and at last she pointed a stick at her and spoke unintelligible words. As though someone had cut the cords of a marionette, she could no longer scream, cry, or kick, and all of her thoughts drifted away like paper boats on a river. She felt her mother's kiss and heard her praise, but the sensations were muffled, far away._

Grey fog swirled, the vision changed, and Harry changed with it.

_She lifted each limb in turn for the clothing, but without any conscious thought of doing so. Thoughts drifted just out of reach, and it was only happenstance that she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror: a small, blonde, rosy-cheeked girl with glazed and vacuous blue eyes. For a moment, fear penetrated the muffling blanket that prevented thought, and she jerked her arm away from her mother with a cry. A sharp slap stung her cheek, and the spell returned double-fold, forcing her thoughts and emotions to dissolve once more._

Grey fog.

_She ran—her legs were long and graceful now that she was a woman—ran through the forest like a gazelle, leaping fallen logs and rocks, not slowing despite the branches scratching her face and ripping at her sheet of rippling blonde hair. She could not stop; she would die first._

"_Get back here!" her mother's voice screamed, and a curse narrowly missed her. She sobbed with terror, but panic spurred her faster. "I'm your mother! You do as I say, Astraea²!"_

_Pain like nothing she had ever felt pierced her, and Astraea fell to the ground, writhing and shuddering involuntarily. A blood-curdling scream ripped its way from her throat. Dimly, she saw her mother holding a wand on her, and in that moment she would happily have ripped the woman's throat out with her bare hands._

"_You will do as I say," Astraea's mother panted, "if I have to hold my wand to your head while you say the vows."_

Grey fog.

_Astraea cradled her baby's head as he suckled at her breast, and let herself relax as the familiar lethargy of breast-feeding came over her. Her little girl was playing with blocks in the corner, piling up towers and then knocking them over gleefully. It was a tranquil moment, but Astraea did not let her guard down._

_Her husband entered the room and slammed the door behind himself. Astraea went rigid at once, and pulled her baby away from her breast, but she was not quick enough. Her husband cast a stinging hex at her, just missing his own child. She kept her face blank, trying not to show the protective rage that bubbled up inside._

"_Put those udders away, you disgusting creature," the man commanded coldly. "Are you a witch, or a barnyard animal?"_

_She buttoned up her blouse wordlessly, though her baby clutched at her breast and wailed._

"_And keep those bloody things quiet!" her husband shouted. He cast silencing spells at both children in quick succession._

Grey fog.

_Astraea wrestled for control of her wand, with the desperation of a cornered animal. There was no thought, no judgement, only terrified instinct, and pain. She bit, kicked, scratched, and then, somehow, the wand was hers._

"_Avada Kedavra!" she screamed, barely remembering to aim._

_No time for his face to register surprise—he simply collapsed, dead. Astraea collapsed, too, panting. She stared in shock at her husband's body, unable to comprehend the sudden turn of events. Her body shook like a leaf in a high wind. Then the tension drained from her, replaced with surety. It was over, at last. Slowly, she gripped her wand in a trembling fist, and raised it to her own chin._

"_Avada Kedavra," she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut. The spell failed. Again and again, it failed. That was how the Aurors found her when they burst in a moment later._

Grey fog.

_Astraea sat bound in chains before an arena of frowning men and women who sat in judgement upon her. A young man paced back and forth before her, asking questions. Her thoughts drifted just beyond her reach again, but her tongue obediently spoke the truth._

"_Did you murder your husband, Chester Bartholomew Crouch?"_

"_Yes," she answered in a monotone, swaying slightly._

_An angry murmuring rose from the arena._

Grey fog.

_Astraea huddled in the corner of a grimy stone cell, wearing rags. She was skin and bones under a curtain of filthy, matted hair, but she scarcely registered her hunger or cold. Nothing mattered anymore. When she could manage to gather her thoughts enough to think anything coherent, she prayed for the only true freedom of death. The bars of the cell clattered back, and two men and a dementor entered. One of the men began to speak in an officious tone. Astraea did not bother looking up._

"_Astraea Violet Crouch, for the crimes of—"_

"_Oh, just get on with it," the other man interrupted. He was wearing a bowler hat. "She'll be a drooling animal in a minute anyway."_

_The first man shrugged, and gestured at the dementor, who swept forward and pressed its mouth to Astraea's. She welcomed it with open arms._

Grey fog again, and then everything faded to black.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

¹ Numerous constellations are associated with mythological figures and gods from various regions, the most well-known example being Orion, a giant huntsman in Greek myth who was placed amongst the stars by Zeus, and Andromeda, the chained princess who was rescued by Perseus (also a constellation) and placed in the sky by Athena after her death. The Babylonians, in particular, who are responsible for most of the Western groupings of stars, associated each constellation with gods and mythical symbols such as sacred animals, which gave rise to the zodiac.

² An epithet of the goddess Dike/Justitia, better known as Lady Justice, whose statue often appears on courthouses. A celestial virgin associated with innocence and purity, who fled the evils of humanity and become the constellation Virgo. Her scales are the constellation Libra. Legend says she will someday return from the stars to usher in a new golden age of justice.


	9. The Twisted Stair

o─-o─-o─-─-─-─ **WITHOUT THORN THE ROSE** ─-─-─-─o-─o-─o

Summary: When Lily died she left a broken James to raise a stranger's son. When a drunken act of violence sees James demoted to prison guard, Harry is inducted into the mysteries of Azkaban, and begins to solve the mysteries of his own existence, as well. SLASH. AH/AU. Some RL/SB, RL/JP, future LV/HP in sequels.

Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling.

Warnings: SLASH. That means men. Having sex. With each other. But not in this chapter.

Notes: Thanks for all the reviews, favs, and follows. If you guys want to see what I think a certain new character looks like, and various other things, you can check that out on my Pinterest, where I keep my reference materials.

o─-─-─-─-─ 9. THE TWISTED STAIR ─-─-─-─-─o

Harry woke soaking wet in a cold, dark place, clutching his knees and rocking mindlessly. There were strange, guttural noises coming from somewhere. It took Harry a while to realize that the noises were coming from him. It took him longer to remember where he was and who he was. He was not a tortured blonde witch called Astraea Crouch. He was Harry Azrael Potter, and no one could ever take his wand away.

Harry wished more than anything that he could take a sponge to his brain and scrub out what he had just seen. But the idea of throwing away the memories, the way Astraea had been thrown away, disturbed him. So he sat in the darkness for long moments, fixing the scenes in his mind, until he was calm enough to do magic. Then he made several balls of light with his coral focus and tossed them in various directions so he could get a good look at where he was.

Harry stared in wide-eyed wonder, craning his head back to peer into the depths of the ceiling far above him. He was in a grotto of hexagonal basalt columns like those of the Giant's Causeway¹. They protruded from the ground, forming rough steps, and descended from the ceiling like broken teeth. Each column was just wide enough to stand on, and Harry hopped from one to the next, exploring the space. At one end of the grotto, the sound of the ocean hissed rhythmically from a downward-sloping tunnel, and at the other end, a set of narrow steps, carved by humans rather than nature, led up into darkness.

On a column next to the stairs was an crudely carved relief of a bare-breasted woman with black wings and the tails of snakes where her legs should have been. It was an eerie image, and the pale, wavering spell-light seemed to contort the face into hideous expressions. Harry shuddered, and turned away from it. The sight of the bare breasts was an unwelcome reminder of the wretched visions he had just suffered.

Throwing balls of light ahead as he went, Harry picked his way cautiously down the tunnel toward the sea, but was stopped after a dozen metres when the tunnel ended in roiling water. That at least explained why Harry was dripping wet. The dementor had obviously brought him into the cave that way, and if Harry wanted to leave the same way, he would have to swim.

An icy chill permeated the air, and Harry drew strength from the cold. He turned and made his way back to the staircase, where he found a dementor waiting for him. Harry lit the grotto brightly with balls of wizard-light, and the creature's bulk, half looming shadow, seemed to shrink under the bright illumination. By the shape of the scars on its hands, Harry knew it was the same one he'd met earlier.

"You," he growled. "You might have warned me!"

"It was u-u-unanticipa-a-ated," the creature croaked, "that her so-o-oul and yo-o-ours would be attu-u-uned."

"It's not…you're not…_her_, are you?" Harry asked warily.

The dementor shook its cowled head.

"What happened to me?"

The dementor tilted its head. "Your Hu-u-unger fought to possess her so-o-oul."

"I didn't mean to," Harry protested. He frowned into space, thinking. It was difficult. His brain was a disordered mess after the mental invasion he had experienced, and his head hurt. "I've got to go, but can we meet again soon? I want you to show me how to manipulate souls like you can do."

"For a tra-a-ade."

Harry wanted to shout at the single-minded thing, but instead he just ground his teeth. He knew he didn't have anything else to offer it.

"All right," he agreed finally. "But get rid of Astraea's soul, or send someone else."

The dementor bowed its head.

Harry took his leave, then. He should perhaps have asked the dementor to help him out of the grotto, but he resented the creature too much for the mental trauma he had sustained. Instead, Harry surrounded himself with cushioning charms, and plunged into the roiling sea alone, fighting the pounding surf with his magic until he made his way out under the light of the stars. When he staggered up onto the narrow beach, he saw the colossal bulk of the prison looming above him, and knew where the stairs in the grotto must lead.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

¹ This is more or less based on Fingal's Cave in Scotland. They also have these formations in the Faroe Islands. Just go Google it, seriously.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

That was the first time, but not the last, that Harry met with a dementor. He returned often in the weeks that followed, to the grotto hidden by the surf. Each time he met with a different dementor, and he questioned them relentlessly on everything from what souls were made of, to who had Kissed the first dementor, but the inscrutable creatures revealed little more than riddles.

Harry learned that souls were supposed to come from the 'magic of all things' and return there after death, but what that really meant, he hadn't any inkling. He learned that dementors perceived souls in everything, from plants to rocks, but Harry, strain as he might, could not see these. He learned that dementors had no memories of their former lives, but they could tap into the memories of the souls they consumed, as Harry had tapped into Astraea's. He learned that the dementors' power of flight came from their robes, not from themselves, but no dementor could tell him where the robes came from, only that they had always had them.

Mostly, Harry learned about his powers. With the guidance of the greedy beings, he became intimately acquainted with the Hunger that lurked in the empty void that half his soul had left behind. His power of frost became both more precise and more powerful. He honed his control to a surgical precision, practicing by writing icy letters on the glass of his attic window from across the room. He also improved his frost's potency, by freezing the surf until he could walk on it.

Most terrifying and exhilarating of all, he learned to perform a variation of the dementors' Kiss. He could not manage to consume a soul, no matter how small, but he could rip them out, and without the need to consume them, there was no need for proximity, so Harry could manage the feat even from several metres away.

The dementors taught Harry the basics, but their demands for recompense drove Harry increasingly to learn on his own. He spent many hours that winter experimenting and practicing: dampening the oscillations and fluctuations of souls, which induced unconsciousness, seizure, coma, and death; tasting souls, all summer, light, and sweetness, and trying, to no avail, to swallow them; condensing souls in an attempt to prevent dissolution, without much luck; ripping souls part way out and letting them snap back in; timing how long after removal a soul could be restored successfully; even removing souls and placing them back into different bodies, though this failed after a few minutes in each case.

And, with an intensity driven by personal need, Harry experimented with tearing souls into pieces, but here he had no success at all. He could pull pieces away easily, but a filament always remained connecting the parts, and no matter how he stretched it, this thread would not break. The dementors, too, reported no knowledge of how such a thing might be done. None among them knew how Harry's soul had been halved, or how.

Harry tried not to think too much about the things he was doing. He was conscious, on some level, of how his experiments would be perceived by an outsider—ghoulish and depraved—but he reassured himself with the thought that he was only trying to acquire knowledge about a branch of magic, that this knowledge would aid him in discovering who and what he was, and that, after all, academagicians relied on animal experimentation as a matter of course.

So Harry spent his days, under the noontime stars, playing the mad sorcerer of Azkaban.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

"I got an owl at work today," James said, stopping Harry in his tracks. The dark-haired boy had been about to take his dinner up to the attic, where he had been eating ever since his ill-fated encounter with James' patronus.

Harry eyed his father warily through his fringe. Relations between them hadn't been so strained since before James' accidental manslaughter had set them packing for Azkaban.

James toyed with his food, not looking at Harry. "It's from your correspondence school. Apparently they haven't received anything from you in a couple of weeks."

"Mm," Harry grunted, as he tried to remember when the last time he had done any schoolwork was.

James glanced up, finally, and sighed. "Look, just sit down. This is getting ridiculous."

Harry sat down rigidly on the sofa across from James, and crossed his arms, hiding his scarred hands in his armpits.

"Why aren't you doing your school work? I thought you liked your classes."

Harry shrugged and said nothing. There was a small amount of satisfaction in leaving James floundering.

James raked a hand through his hair, frustrated. "Look, Harry, if you flunk out of school, that could be grounds to question my fitness as a guardian. Do you understand that?"

An incredulous laugh bubbled up from Harry.

James frowned. "Did I say something funny? Because the last I checked, having Lucius Malfoy get custody of you wouldn't be a barrel of laughs."

"I don't see how he could be much worse than you," Harry replied. His voice started out steady and strong, but by the end of the sentence, it had died down to a whisper, and he couldn't seem to maintain eye contact anymore.

James recoiled as though he had been slapped. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, fluctuating between expressions of anger and guilt. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Harry wanted nothing more than to whip his hands out and show James the silvery crescents that the man's magic had branded into Harry's flesh, but he couldn't, for then James would see Harry's coral focus, and know how many laws Harry had been breaking. So Harry just shook his head and glared at the wall behind his father's head.

James sighed. "Look, I know we haven't had much time together lately, and this place is pretty bleak. There's a reason that they gave me this job as a punishment. But I'm not going to let it break me—break _us_. We just have to get through this."

Harry squinted at his father incredulously. Was James really just planning to pretend that the incident with his patronus had never happened? Or had he actually blocked the whole thing from his mind? Explaining the real source of his anger would raise too many questions, however, so Harry simply nodded.

"Can I go now?" Harry asked flatly.

James sighed and nodded, looking morose, but Harry had no sympathy for the man.

"And do your bloody schoolwork, you hear?" James called after Harry.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Harry did his bloody schoolwork, but continued to practice his magic and his dementor powers more than could be considered healthy. But that was not all he found to occupy his time. From the start, the revelation of the grotto hidden by the sea had seemed a tacit invitation to explore where its mysterious stair might lead, but Harry held back, judiciously, until he could ascertain the dementors' probable reaction. Though their answers were often evasive and riddle-like, in time Harry came to understand that the dementors did not perceive their role at Azkaban as that of wardens. The island was simply their hunting ground, and they left the wizenguards unmolested in exchange for a steady supply of plump and juicy souls.

This was how Harry found himself, shortly after mid-winter, in the basalt grotto, climbing the narrow and winding stair. Its proportions were queer: narrow enough that a hefty adult could not have passed, with a ceiling so low that Harry's hair brushed it if he stood, and steps so steep that he was forced to climb with both hands and feet. After the first time he glanced over his shoulder and looked down, he resolved never to do that again. It reminded him all too much of certain nightmares in which he was clinging to the edge of a cliff.

It was a good thing Harry wasn't claustrophobic, because the stair spiralled and zigzagged without a single opening for what felt like a dozen stories. From time to time he saw souls, and even heard voices, close enough that he could have touched them if it were not for the stone walls, and he knew that he was deep within the prison. Perhaps the stair's proportions were simply a means of hiding it, he reasoned, resting momentarily and eyeing the nearness of souls that surrounded him on all sides. No one examining a schematic of the castle for unoccupied areas would imagine that this space was wide enough to contain a hidden passage.

At last the stair ended at a wall of smooth, dark stone, and Harry stopped, flummoxed. He looked for a handle or knob, but there was none, so he pushed instead. After bruising his shoulder, he pushed with his magic, and eventually was able to shift the stone enough to squeeze through the gap. After a few moments waiting to see if any souls would come near, Harry emerged into a blast of refreshing, arctic wind. His shaggy black hair blew into his eyes and prevented him getting a good look at first, but when he turned into the wind, he saw that he was on top of a tower.

The tower was crenelated, and when he poked his head into one of the crenels to see how high he was, he cursed. He was atop the highest tower of Azkaban, standing in the palm of the tower that he had often thought seemed to scratch the sky like a clawed hand. The island below him was hidden by a sea of rolling mist.

Harry made a circuit of the tower top and was startled to discover that there were cells here, and, worse, that they were open-fronted cells, separated from the bitter polar winds only by iron bars. There were eight cells in total, each one roughly four square metres, containing only a blanket, a bucket, and a prisoner. Each prisoner was huddled in a ball in the leeward part of the cell, wrapped in his or her blanket and shivering uncontrollably.

One of the occupants was a shaggy black dog, and Harry frowned at its outsized soul dumbly for a moment before he realized it was an animagus. _Clever, that_. The dog, like all the other prisoners, was curled into a quivering blanket-wrapped ball.

"You! Boy!" The man in the next cell called. His voice was rough, perhaps from disuse. "What are you doing here?"

Harry started, and turned slowly to the man, trying to decide how to respond. The man had long, tangled, auburn hair that partially obscured a finely boned face and pale green eyes. He was far too thin to be healthy, and his skin was caked with a layer of filth that rendered his original skin tone unknowable.

"Oh, I just like to tour ancient castles, take in a bit of history, you know," said Harry after a long moment.

The man stared at him blankly, then made a hoarse, repetitive noise that might have been a laugh or a cough. Flecks of blood spattered all over the man's hands and cheeks.

"Tourist, eh," the man growled. "You thrice-cursed hallucinations don't even make sense."

"No need," Harry agreed coolly. "We hallucinations answer to no one."

The man eyed him narrowly, and Harry got the uncomfortable feeling that the man hadn't lost all his wits to the dementors yet.

"How come you don't freeze up here in this wind?" Harry asked, drifting closer, within arm's length of the bars. "Surely those blankets aren't adequate. Unless they're enchanted?"

The man considered him for a moment. "If I tell you, you'll tell me what prisoner you're visiting."

"All right," Harry agreed.

"This," the man explained, sticking one bony arm out from under his blanket to a display a tattoo on the back of his hand. Harry moved closer to make it out under the moonlight. The tattoo was a complex runic design that Harry couldn't made heads or tails of, and below it was a serial number.

"What's that, then?"

"Horrid thing that keeps us from freezing or starving or dying of thirst."

"Why're you cold, then?"

"Didn't say it stops the _cold_, boy. Just stops us dying of it."

"That's sick," Harry protested, making a disgusted face. "They're torturing you with it."

The man snorted, spraying blood again. Harry jerked back instinctively. "What do you expect, it's the bloody Ministry. Savages and mudbloods, the lot of them."

Harry pursed his lips, considering. Surely only the worst prisoners would be immured in such cruel fashion. He wondered if he could _Obliviate_ the man if he saw Harry's tell-tale scar; it was a good thing it was so dark.

"Who are you?" Harry asked. "Are you a Death Eater?"

"Ah-ah," the man taunted in his gravelly voice. "You haven't told me who you're visiting yet."

Harry snorted. "Please, do you really think they'd let a visitor up here unaccompanied?"

The man's eyes narrowed. "Every man has his price, and wizenguards are cheaper than most. What are you doing here, if not visiting someone?"

Harry smiled faintly, savouring the feeling of having all the leverage for once. "I answered your question. Now you answer mine."

"All right," the man agreed slowly.

"Who are you?"

"Rabastan Lestrange."

Harry froze. He knelt down closer to the huddled man-ball and searched the grungy face in the light of the half moon. The features were different, but the auburn hair and those bright green eyes were so like Lily's that Harry drew a sharp breath.

"And who are you?" the man asked hoarsely.

Harry bit his lip, pondering the wisdom of revealing anything. But this was the first blood relative of his that Harry had ever met, and he was overcome with sentiment. "I'm your great-nephew."

Rabastan squinted. "My brother doesn't have any children—thank the gods for that."

"Your other brother."

"My other brother's dead," Rabastan snarled.

Harry's face fell. "Dead? Are you sure?"

"Who are you, boy?"

"I told you, I'm your great-nephew. Rogerick was my grandfather. Is he really dead? I wanted to meet him…"

"He's dead. I saw the Dark Lord _Avada_ him myself. Explain this drivel you're spouting, and tell me your name."

Harry huffed, annoyed. "Why should I?"

The man considered a moment, and smiled unpleasantly. "If you don't, I'll tell your father you're sneaking around here."

Harry opened his mouth to demand to know how Rabastan knew about James, and then closed it again. The man was bluffing.

"My father wouldn't care," Harry lied. Then he had a stroke of inspiration. "In fact, I reckon he'd be quite chuffed."

Rabastan frowned. "Why's that? He mad like you?"

"My father," Harry said in a low, conspiratorial tone, as he leaned forward and wrapped his hands around the frigid bars, "is a dementor."

Harry released a blast of carefully controlled cold that made the iron bars and his hands grow frost, and then he delicately teased at the man's soul with just a hint of pressure. It was barely enough force to make a gannet twitch, but the man screamed, and scuttled backward, hiding his face against the wall of his cell.

"No, no…" he moaned. "Oh, gods, please, go away! PLEASE!"

Harry released the pressure and frost, horrified. He didn't know what to say, but he felt unsettled at having so misjudged the situation. He thought of apologizing, but he didn't want to take back his lie or the threat it contained, so instead he aimed his coral focus at the man and concentrated on the idea of warmth—the kind of warmth one feels wrapped in a cosy down blanket, cuddled up by a roaring log fire, sipping a cup of hot cocoa.

The man stopped shivering suddenly, and after a moment his head emerged from under his blanket. He eyed Harry with awe and not a little fear.

"What _are_ you?" he gasped.

"I'm your nephew," Harry answered quietly.

"You're not real."

"I am."

"Prove it."

Harry extended his arm slowly between the bars of the cell. Hesitantly, watching Harry with mistrust, as though the boy meant to strangle the man, Rabastan crawled forward. Then he clasped the hand.

"You're cold," he exclaimed fearfully.

"So are you. It's freezing up here."

"Are you really real? Really?"

Harry smiled woodenly. Perhaps Rabastan hadn't retained as many wits as Harry had hoped. "Yes."

"Don't leave me. It's horrible here." This was delivered in a strangled whisper. Harry was discomforted to see that Rabastan had tears in his eyes.

"I'm sorry," Harry said awkwardly. "I'll do what I can." He paused. "Your brother, Rogerick, he had a baby with Electra Black. She left the baby on a church's doorstep, and some muggles took her in. When she grew up, she got married and had me. That's how I'm your great-nephew."

Rabastan searched Harry's eyes for the truth. "I can believe the part about Electra Black, but I'll not believe a woman marrying a dementor."

Harry laughed humourlessly. "Er—no, my mum married a man."

The light of a soul moving closer, below them, made Harry jump in alarm. "I've got to go—there's a guard coming."

"No, please!"

"I'm sorry," Harry whispered, jerking his hand from Rabastan's. The man tried to hold on, but he was weak and Harry was desperate. "I'll come back as soon as I can."

He shot another warming charm at Rabastan, and, then, with a last, thoughtful look, darted back into the stairwell and forced the stone door shut. In the darkness there, he watched the guard's soul bob around the tower top twice and then leave. He could have returned to his uncle then, but he needed to think.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

"So that's how I met my great-uncle."

Bjorn frowned at Harry over his steaming cup of hot tea. Harry smiled. He had never quite got over what a comical image the giant blonde north-man made, this scarred bear of a man, sipping from a dainty china cup.

"Rabastan Lestrange," Bjorn murmured contemplatively. "What did he do to get sent to Azkaban?"

Harry swallowed and pushed his tea away. It might have been the strong brew on an empty stomach, but he felt suddenly nauseous. "He's a self-professed Death Eater. And he tortured a couple of Aurors into insanity."

Bjorn stroked his beard. "And you want to get to know him?"

Harry made a face and shrugged. "I want to know what happened to my grandparents. And what the family was like. And…" He sighed. "I know it sounds mad, but the conditions are terribly inhumane, even for Death Eaters."

Bjorn smirked. "You have a soft heart, _fugleunge_."

Harry grimaced. "I wish I could get into the other parts of the prison, but there are too many guards around. If only I could make invisibility work…"

Bjorn nodded. "That's a tough one. I can only manage it if I hold still."

"Better than nothing," Harry pointed out. "All I've managed is making myself a bit blurry."

"Focus on the idea of directing the light _around_ you."

Harry chewed his lip and lifted his hand, focusing intensely.

"Not bad. I can see through you now."

"But?" Harry asked pointedly, still focusing.

"I can still see you."

"Ugh, it's giving me a headache," Harry complained, dropping the spell and pinching the bridge of his nose.

"You want to be careful of that. My _bestefaren_ burst a blood vessel in his brain doing that. Don't push too hard."

Harry stared wide-eyed at the north-man, aghast. "You might've warned me earlier!"

Bjorn shrugged. "I didn't think it was a concern at your age. Most ten-year-olds can't concentrate long enough to find their way out of a paper sack. It usually happens to older folks, or those who've been sipping funny potions."

Harry glared at the blonde. "Well, you were wrong."

Bjorn grinned. "Clearly. You _are_ special, _fugleunge_, no matter how you fix your hair."

Harry scowled and checked that his bangs were still covering his scar. Bjorn chuckled.

"I don't mind being special," Harry muttered, "I just don't like it when people _expect_ things."

"'To whom much is given, much is required.'"

"What's that from, then?"

"The Bible."

"That muggle book?"

Bjorn snorted in mild-mannered disgust. "You pride yourself on knowledge, but you don't even know the basics about muggles, do you?"

Harry looked bewildered. "Why should I learn about muggles? It's not like they matter."

Bjorn gave him a hard look. "I forget sometimes how it is in your country."

Harry stared at him, puzzled. "Are muggles different in Norway?"

Bjorn tilted his head noncommittally. "In the south, no. They've largely intermarried with Danes and Germans, who intermarried with the English. But in the north, they still follow the old ways."

Harry's expression cleared. "Ah, you're talking about Merlin's poison. I wouldn't have imagined there was anyone in Europe still unaffected."

Bjorn nodded. "The poison spreads, but not so quickly as you think. Western Europe is largely lost, along with the Colonies, but the rest of the world remains unaffected on the whole. Of course, in the larger cities, the trade cities, the poison spreads more quickly."

"But those are all the most important places…"

Bjorn smiled. "The very places where wizarding culture is the most highly developed, yes. Well, that _was_ the point after all. And do you know the places where muggle culture is most developed?"

Harry frowned. "No."

"The same places, _fugleunge._"

Harry frowned. There was something important in that, something that made him uneasy, but he couldn't put his finger on it. "Saying _developed_ makes it sound as though it's all for the better."

Bjorn made a pensive noise. "That's a matter of some debate, to say the least," he remarked.

"What do you mean?" Harry's stomach was still roiling nauseously.

"Well, what do you think we've been fighting over for the last few centuries?"

"You mean the Dark Lord and all that? I thought that was all about pureblood rights."

"And what does it mean to have pure blood? They define themselves by rejecting all things muggle. But that's only your little British conflict. I speak of greater wars than that."

"What, Grindelwald's war?"

"Grindelwald, yes, and others."

"But Grindelwald didn't kill nearly as many people as Voldemort."

"Grindelwald didn't kill as many _wizards_," Bjorn corrected sharply. Harry was startled to see a cold anger burning in Bjorn's eye. He felt simultaneously intimidated and excited by Bjorn's ferocity. "He killed millions of muggles."

"Millions?" Harry repeated incredulously. "That's absurd."

Bjorn set aside his tea-cup and leaned forward in his seat, capturing Harry's gaze and holding it hostage.

"His henchman rounded up all those muggles who were still living side-by-side with wizards¹ and slaughtered them systematically. A few _Imperio_'s on the right people and he got them to do it to each other. They were seething with hatred already and he provided them an outlet. He even tried to recreate the poison of Merlin, though he didn't succeed. The only way the poison has spread since the days of Merlin is by birth. So he created programs to breed the muggles like livestock."

Harry swallowed thickly against the bile that wanted to come up his throat. "How come nobody ever told me that?" he asked quietly.

Bjorn settled back in his seat. "'It's not like they matter,'" he quoted, matching the inflexion Harry had used.

Harry winced. Bjorn sighed and reached across the gap between them to pat Harry's hair. Harry blushed and looked away, ashamed of his ignorance. Someday he would know everything, and then no one would ever get the best of him.

"It's not your fault, _fugleunge_," Bjorn reassured him softly. "Not while you're a child, anyway. Most wizards either don't know or don't care. That was the sin of Merlin. He put wizardry on a pedestal so tall that we couldn't hear the cries of those we left on the ground."

"You think it _was_ a sin, then?" Harry asked.

Bjorn sighed and picked up his teacup again. "It's always a sin to take another man's choice away."

Harry frowned. "Always? Even if one of the choices is wrong? Even if it's evil?"

Bjorn thought a moment. "I don't say we should let mad dogs run free, _fugleunge_, but…" He thought a while longer. Then, slowly, he began to weave a tale.

"Amongst the muggles, there's a story that is widely believed. The story goes like this: in the beginning, their god—the only god, according to them—created one man and one woman. He gave them a beautiful garden to live in. It was a paradise where the sky was always sunny and the fruit was always ripe. The animals didn't eat each other, and even the roses didn't have thorns. And the man and woman would never die, because there was a tree of life there for them to eat from. They were like children, completely innocent. They wore no clothes, but they didn't need them, for it was always warm."

Harry frowned, repelled by the idea of a garden with no dark, cold places to hide.

"But there was another tree there, that they weren't allowed to eat from, and that was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. One day, a serpent tempted the woman to eat from it, saying that it would give her wisdom. So she ate from it, and then gave the fruit to her husband, who also ate it. And they realized that they were naked, and covered themselves in shame. And then their god came, saw what they had done, and said: they are become as gods, knowing of good and evil. He cast them out of the garden and cursed them to have to toil and suffer and someday die."

Bjorn took another sip of tea. "That is what the muggles believe. It is their deepest shame, to know that they sinned from their very beginnings. That they let down their god and in so doing lost paradise for all their children and their children's children." He half-smiled.

Harry was silent a while, thinking. "That doesn't make any sense," he said finally, sounding irritated.

"No?"

"If they believe they were created by this god, then he must have given them their curiosity. And if it was _his_ garden, then _he _put the tree there and made the walls so that the serpent could get in. He set them up for a fall, and then he punished them for it? Why would you worship a god that toys with you like that? It's worse than a cat with a mouse. At least the cat doesn't pretend to be the mouse's friend."

Bjorn hummed noncommittally. "And the fruit of the tree?"

"What about it?"

"Should they have eaten it?"

Harry stared into space, thinking about the serpent. "You know, even wizards think snakes are dark. But they're not dark. They're dangerous, but not dark. People don't like to be reminded that life is dangerous. It's ironic that it was a snake who gave the woman the idea. Maybe she realized that the good times couldn't last forever. That gods are jealous and petty. Maybe she did the only thing she could to protect herself and the man by arming them with knowledge."

Bjorn's eyebrows inched upwards. "That interpretation had not occurred to me, but it has some logic."

"Well, what's your take, then? You're always trying to sneak these little morals in." Harry favoured Bjorn with a not unfriendly glare. "Don't think I haven't noticed."

Bjorn laughed. "Forgive me, _fugleunge_, I'm a little rusty on these matters." He thought a moment. "You want to know what I really think?" He glanced at Harry, who nodded. "I think that without the fruit of knowledge, the man and woman were just dumb beasts like every other beast. They could behave like beasts and not be punished for it, because they knew no better. A man would be wrong to eat another man's child, but when a lion does it, it's simply nature taking its course. So I ask myself, what knowledge is there that humans have that stops them behaving like beasts? And the only answer I've found is the knowledge that everyone feels the same pains, the same joys, the same sorrows. That no man is an island. We have this knowledge, and it sets us apart. It limits us, in some ways, but it sets us free in others."

"Sets us free?" Harry asked, bemused. "How is that?"

Bjorn smiled indulgently. "It sets us free from the prison of self."

Harry blinked several times. Bjorn's words might as well have been Norwegian, but he tucked them away for later all the same.

There was a long silence, and Harry watched the horizon swing up and down through the porthole as the boat rocked. Beneath the dull grey surface of the ocean, tiny souls darted to and fro on their unknown business. He sensed that Bjorn's story, too, held hidden depths, but unlike the sea, Harry couldn't sense what lurked beneath this surface. He was out of his depth, and anything could be circling below him.

"I said it was wrong to take another man's choice away," Bjorn reminded Harry. "And that is because it is our choices that make us human. A wolf has no choice but to eat the lamb. He cannot master his instincts. But a man is different, and to take away a man's choice is to dehumanize him."

"But people choose _wrong._ They choose to destroy and steal and kill, all the time. They choose to follow people like _Grindelwald_."

"Would you herd us all back into the muggle god's garden, then? Have us all be his tame wolves who lie down with lambs? Cut all the thorns from the roses so that no one pricks himself?"

"No," Harry whispered. He lowered his eyes in defeat. "No, but I don't have to like it."

Bjorn reached out and stroked Harry's sleek black hair. "You will make a fine _fugl_² someday, _fugleunge_."

One corner of Harry's mouth twitched up. "Speak English, you stupid old bear."

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

¹ Referring to the Jews, Gypsies, and other minorities, who were relatively isolated in terms of marriage from the rest of the Europeans

² Norwegian: _fugl _= 'bird', _fugleunge _= 'birdling'


	10. Red Viper, Black Dog

o─-o─-o─-─-─-─ **WITHOUT THORN THE ROSE** ─-─-─-─o-─o-─o

Summary: When Lily died she left a broken James to raise a stranger's son. When a drunken act of violence sees James demoted to prison guard, Harry is inducted into the mysteries of Azkaban, and begins to solve the mysteries of his own existence, as well. SLASH. AH/AU. Some RL/SB, RL/JP, future LV/HP in sequels.

Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling.

Warnings: SLASH. There actually is some in this chapter for once.

Notes: Thanks for all the new reviews, favs, and follows. Sorry it took me a few extra days to get this chapter out. I am getting down to the end of the semester here, and finals are the next two weeks, so there may be a few more off-schedule weeks. Also, this chapter was a beast that required an almost total rewrite. I probably could have posted it a couple of days ago, but I wanted to polish it some more. Please let me know what you think of the new character I introduce in this one. I have already posted some pics of my idea of what he looks like over at my Pinterest. Hint: yummy.

Oh, I have also been advised that the word _fugleungen_ should be _fugleunge_. I think this has something to do with gender or definite articles or something. Norwegian is very mysterious to me. I wrote a little macro that auto-updates all my chapter files from my central file to make it easier to change that everywhere. Unfortunately, this also means that I won't have any qualms if I want to go back and toy with already posted chapters some more. In fact, I have already done so a few times without saying anything, but I will notify you all if I decide to change any plot points. Frankly, I just don't understand how people can post as they write without wanting to change things later!

o─-─-─-─-─ 10. RED VIPER, BLACK DOG ─-─-─-─-─o

"Thanks, angel," Rabastan acknowledged, passing back an empty bowl from which every last crumb had been licked.

"Angel?" Harry asked sceptically. He was sitting cross-legged before Rab's cell, just out of arm's reach of the auburn-haired prisoner.

Rab shrugged, and a flicker of resentment crossed the auburn haired man's gaunt face. "I don't have anything else to call you."

Harry looked away a bit guiltily. He had long since extracted from his great-uncle a magical vow to keep Harry's secrets, but even so, Harry still had not given his name to Rab. The idea of doing so made him uneasy, and Harry was learning to trust his instincts, both magical and mundane. After that first reckless visit, Harry had also concealed his presence from the other prisoners atop the tower. Given the placement of the cells and the stairs, he needed only silencing spells to do so.

"I don't think an angel would visit a Death Eater," Harry replied bluntly.

"Why not? Death Eaters fight for the freedom of their fellow wizards."

"Except the muggleborn kind," Harry pointed out.

Rabastan's eyes glinted murderously. "_Mudbloods_," he spat. "They're worse than muggles. At least those vermin leave us alone."

Harry sighed, and got to his feet. Rab's rants usually signalled the end of a session. The man would pace his cell agitatedly for hours, pulling at his hair and spewing vitriol into the wind until his words were incomprehensible. It was impossible to talk him down from this state.

Harry hadn't noticed it on his first meeting with his great-uncle, but upon closer inspection, there was a threadbare quality to the man's soul, and there were days on which Harry arrived to find him catatonic, staring into space dumbly while drool rolled down his chin. Worse, in the presence of dementors, Harry could actually see the man's soul fraying. It was equal parts thrilling and revolting.

"No, wait!" Rab cried, reaching out desperately through the bars to clutch at Harry's trousers, which were all he could reach of the boy. The man's lower lip trembled, and tears began to gather in his eyes. "I'm sorry, please don't go! Did I do something wrong? Are you a muggle-lover?"

These sudden emotional transitions were another side effect of the damage to Rab's soul, Harry supposed, but they were difficult to tolerate, even so. He glanced longingly toward the entrance to the hidden stair.

"I need to get going," the dark-haired boy explained. "I'll come back tomorrow, but I'm taking the silencing spell down now."

That was the signal for Rab to either stop talking to Harry or start choking on his magical vow. The man had already pushed it to the limit several times, and today was no exception.

Rab's emotions shifted gear again without warning. Spittle flew from the Death Eater's mouth as his face flushed bright red with fury. "You little freak. You think you can jerk me around like some two-sickle whore? Fuck you! Go suck off some muggles, why don't you, or a dementor, you fucking ghoul!"

Harry just shook his head wearily. He had the plot of the melodrama by heart after several weeks' worth of visits. Next, Rab would weep and beg Harry's forgiveness for insulting him. Harry gestured with his hand, dismissing the silencing spell, and headed for the stairs.

Rab tried to choke out a few more words, despite the invisible, choking pressure of his vow. "Y…muggle-loving…fu…"

Rab coughed and gasped for breath as Harry approached the wall that hid the twisted stair and drew back the stone with magic. The Death Eater was not finished, however. He could still talk; he simply could not reveal Harry's presence by directing statements to him. Unfortunately, this did not prevent communication nearly well enough.

There was a strangled sob, and the sound of skin and bones thudding against the icy bars of Rab's cell. Harry glanced back, against his own better judgement, as the pathetic man clutched the bars and blubbered.

"Muggles—I don't care about muggles. Muggles are grand, muggles are brilliant! Bring me a knife, and I'd cut the Mark off right this minute! Bring me a picture of the Dark Lord, and I'd spit on it! Bring me Dumbledore, and I'd kiss his wrinkled old ball-sack! Only—only, _ple_…" Rab's voice was choked off again.

Harry was closing the stone door when a scratchy voice called from the next cell.

"Traitor!"

Harry paused.

Rabastan's tears had dried quickly, it seemed, as he snarled, "Fuck off, you flea-ridden shit-eater!"

Harry slipped back out onto the tower's parapet, keeping out of sight of Rab.

"Everyone knows what a traitor _you_ are," the auburn-haired man called. "Betrayed your own best friend, didn't you?"

"NEVER!" the other voice roared.

It was the animagus in the next cell. Harry saw the man's long, bony, white fingers clenching his bars, and he couldn't resist his growing curiosity any longer. It was a risk, but he had taken plenty of those already. He stepped into view of the animagus, and looked him over.

The prisoner, who was usually a shaggy black dog, also had shaggy black hair as a human, but only on his head. He was rather tall, and his face would have been quite handsome, if it weren't so skeletal and worn with suffering. Harry knew him at once from the photograph in _Nature's Nobility_.

"You're Sirius Black," Harry murmured, eyes wide.

Sirius stepped back cautiously, looking Harry over with alarm, but he nodded, once, curtly.

"Sold out your own best friend to the Dark Lord!" Rab baited gleefully, still unaware of Harry's presence.

Sirius's face writhed with fury. It seemed he was helpless to resist his fellow Death Eater's taunts. "I never sold out Prongs, you bloody snake!"

"Ha!" Rabastan's laugh was a high, unhealthy sound, more like a cry of pain than amusement. "Prongs! Is that what you called him when he _pronged_ you up the arse, you bloody shirt-lif—"

Harry cut Rab off mid-giggle with a silencing spell that enclosed himself and Sirius. Anything to prevent the repellent drama from playing out. Harry suspected that the men had enacted this particular scene a thousand times. It must have been the only entertainment available for years.

Sirius looked back at Harry, startled.

"You shouldn't let him get you so riled up," Harry advised.

Sirius scoffed bitterly. "Not like there's anything else to do around here."

Harry acknowledged the truth of this statement with a rueful tilt of the head. "He's just taking the piss, though. He knows you didn't sell out Potter."

Sirius frowned in suspicion. "And how would _you_ know?"

"Everyone knows. Potter told the whole story to the _Prophet_ just after the attack. It was above the fold for weeks. He made Dumbledore his secret-keeper after you turned, but Voldemort found them anyway."

Sirius made a derisive noise. "I suppose you read all about it? What are you, a vampire?" he asked, referring to Harry's youth.

Harry smiled mysteriously. Sirius already seemed to be a good deal sharper than Rab, and his soul, though not unscathed, bore far less damage than Rab's. Sirius' glowing soul pulsed and swirled healthily, though it seemed a touch smaller than was usual for a wizard.

"You tell me your story, I'll tell you mine," Harry offered.

Sirius looked intrigued, but did not reply right away as he curled up again with his blanket in the leeward part of his cell. After a moment of silent thought, Harry realized that the man was trembling, and his eyes had taken on a sheen of terror. Given the perpetual darkness and the arctic winds that raked the soaring tower, Harry hadn't detected the intruder.

"Stop," Harry commanded, whirling to face the dementor that loomed over him.

It inhaled with a hoarse rattle, and Harry stepped back protectively against the bars of the cell, summoning his dove patronus, Pax, with a quick wave of his hand. The dementor shifted restlessly, but stayed near the edge of the tower.

"Hu-u-ungry," the black-robed creature rasped. "Pre-e-ey."

"This one is mine. Go find someone else to chew on," Harry warned.

The dementor paused for a moment, then turned and sailed over the crenulation. Harry turned back to Sirius and found him in dog form, shivering. Harry warmed the man with a spell and sent Pax to him, hoping he hadn't been rendered incapable of speech.

"Sorry, I don't have any food for you. I'll bring some next time," Harry promised, settling onto the pleasantly icy stone floor in front of the cell.

Sirius glanced at Harry, whimpered softly, then shifted jerkily back to human form. Harry was impressed—Rab would have been insensible for hours. Sirius regarded Harry with only slightly less fear than he had the dementor, but his intelligent black eyes searched Harry's face intently. Harry was glad he had used a sticking spell to keep his fringe firmly in place.

"You can speak to dementors," Sirius observed. His words sounded like an accusation.

Harry smirked. "Anyone can _speak_ to them."

"But _you_, they understand."

Harry looked up at the star-littered sky for a moment. "How shall I put it? They…speak to something inside of me."

Sirius looked perplexed. "Well, this is certainly a new tactic. You haven't tried this before. I wonder if it will work?" He scratched his scraggly beard and regarded Harry curiously.

Harry arched one thin black eyebrow. "When you say 'you'…"

Sirius looked nonplussed. "You Ministry types. You've never sent an Unspeakable before."

Harry was caught off-guard for a moment, but he recovered quickly. "Ah. Yes. Well…"

Sirius cocked his head. "So? What is it this time? A new potion? Honestly, I thought you had given up years since."

"The Ministry never gives up."

Sirius was motionless for a few seconds, and then he chuckled awkwardly, as though he had forgotten how. The laughter turned into a coughing fit that lasted quite a while. When he finally recovered, he was regarding Harry in a different light.

"You're not Ministry, are you?"

Harry clucked his tongue and sighed. "What gave me away?" he grumbled.

"The lack of irony, mainly. Never met an Unspeakable who had any respect for the Ministry. I'm not sure they even consider themselves employees." Sirius' sharp eyes raked over Harry's face. "You really are just a kid, then?"

Harry glowered at Sirius' apparently waning opinion of him. "I wouldn't say I'm _just_ a kid…but if you must know, I'm ten."

Sirius snorted. "I always knew the wizenguards were a sorry lot, but when _kids_ are breaking in, you know you've got problems."

"Never mind that. Can Unspeakables really communicate with dementors?" Harry asked.

"I wouldn't know, but you didn't seem to be the Dark Lord reborn, so I thought if anyone could, it would be them."

"The Dark Lord—Voldemort—he understood dementors?" Harry asked sharply.

"So he said. How did you get in here?"

Harry smiled in what he fancied was a predatory manner. "Answer my questions, and I'll tell you."

Sirius was still a moment. Then he reached out for Pax, who alit on the man's wrist of his own volition. Sirius petted the small creature for a moment, gazing into its eyes. "Leave your patronus with me sometimes, and I'll tell you as much as the Ministry know."

Harry raised an eyebrow challengingly. "Only if you agree to keep my visits a secret," he returned, and extended his coral-pierced hand, which was already glowing with golden spell-light.

Sirius fixated on Harry's hand as though it were a weapon. "With what as forfeit?"

Harry shrugged. "Loss of consciousness?" It was the same forfeit Rab had taken, and was effective enough.

Sirius considered a moment, then, slowly, he inclined his head, and took the vow. He took a deep breath, afterward, and looked at Harry determinedly. "So. What do you want to know?"

Harry sat forward eagerly. "You were the first Black Sorted into Gryffindor in centuries. Your family disowned you, and you fought alongside Dumbledore. But then you turned. I want to know why."

Sirius closed his eyes and sighed deeply. "So do I. So does the Ministry."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked, puzzled.

"I Obliviated myself."

Harry's mouth dropped open. "You mean you don't know? You betrayed everyone, and you don't even know why?"

Sirius barked a humourless laugh. "They tried for years to get it out of me. Legilimency, veritaserum… They never found anything. There's a reason we Blacks are known for our psychomagy."

Harry, who was half Black through Lily, yearned to confess his heritage to Sirius so that he, too, could learn the subtle family art, but that was a conversation for another time, if ever.

"Was this before or after you joined Voldemort?"

Sirius massaged his stick-thin left forearm unconsciously. "Before. That was the whole point, I would guess."

"But if you didn't remember why you wanted to join him, then why do it?"

"I implanted messages and impulses into my dreams. They were…difficult to controvert."

"And it didn't occur to you that someone else might be manipulating you?"

Sirius shook his head. "I learned the art of mind magic at my mother's knee. I know my own work when I see it."

"So you blew up the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures—killed hundreds of innocent people and creatures—because of some dreams?"

"The creatures, I released. As for the employees—innocent?" Sirius growled harshly, eyes blazing. "They deserved far worse than death. That was simply the best I could do, even with the Dark Lord's backing."

Harry's eyes widened. "Why? What did they do?"

Sirius shook his head. "Obliviated, remember? All I know is what I saw that day." He cut his eyes sharply toward Harry, who was hanging on every word. "And that's not a story for children."

Harry scowled. "I've seen plenty."

Sirius clearly didn't take this claim as legitimate. "Let's just say, when they said they were disposing of dangerous creatures, they didn't mean quite what everyone thought."

Harry squinched his face up, pondering that idea.

"I didn't just blow up their offices," Sirius continued, baring his teeth with a grim and twisted pride. "I obliterated them beyond all repair. And then I hunted down every last survivor. Everyone who was on vacation and sick leave. All but one."

"Who?" Harry asked, propping his chin on his fist, fascinated.

Sirius shook his head. "I don't know his name. He caught me setting up the spells and bolted. I thought I was done for, but he must not have told anyone in time. Damned if I know why not." Sirius' jaw clenched, and he looked coldly murderous for a moment.

"You still want him dead, even after all these years?"

"I'd kill him in a heartbeat."

Harry frowned thoughtfully at the animagus. "Sirius," he asked slowly, trying to find just the right words. "What do _you_ think your reason for turning was?"

Sirius shrugged one bony shoulder. "Love? It's the only possibility that makes any sense." Harry nodded. "Thing is, I probably didn't completely Obliviate my memories of that person. That would have been too obvious, especially if we had a public relationship. Voldemort, the Ministry interrogators, they would have noticed that. So it's probably someone I remember. I just don't remember loving them that madly."

"That makes sense," Harry agreed, struggling to keep his face impassive. He was impressed that Sirius had put his finger right on it, but, after all, the man had had years to think it over.

"But I've dated a lot of people," Sirius continued, rubbing streaks into the grime that coated his forehead. "I was a bit of a slag at Hogwarts, to be honest."

"Maybe I could go talk to some of your old lovers," Harry suggested innocently. "Try to figure out who it is. That is, if it wouldn't damage your mind to find out."

Sirius waved his hand dismissively. "That presumes I've walled it off in some part of my mind. I haven't. Those memories are quite literally gone."

Harry bit his lip. "So even if you found out who it was, you still wouldn't remember?"

"That's right."

Harry nibbled his lower lip, thinking quickly. "But that's too tragic, isn't it—to think you destroyed a love so…so epic?"

Sirius looked troubled for a moment. "I suppose. I can't really know."

"I just can't imagine anyone would really _do _that," Harry continued pointedly. "I mean, to lose each other forever…"

"Some things are more important than being together, I suppose."

"But I just can't believe you would really destroy a love that deep…"

"You said that already."

Harry rolled his eyes, and stopped beating around the bush. "What I _mean_ is, don't you think you must have stored your memories somewhere safe? Maybe I could get them for you."

Sirius was silent for a long time, staring into space. Then he nodded, once. "I've thought of it before."

"Where would you have stored them?"

"Gringotts, I suppose. That would have kept them safe from the Dark Lord and the Ministry. Probably under a code name, in a vault that I don't remember I have."

"But if I could find the key…" Harry prompted.

Sirius snarled suddenly. "Whoever this lover is, I must have been counting on her to visit me. It would have triggered a dream, perhaps, a message…only she never once did. So why should I even bother, after all these years? She obviously thinks herself better off without me."

Harry sighed. "I'm sure she had her reasons."

Sirius glowered at the wind. "Even if I did get my memories back, what good would it do me? I would still be in here, and she would still be out there. And if she hates me now…"

Harry smirked to himself, but hid it behind his fist.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

"How come you've never visited Sirius in Azkaban?" Harry asked one morning during his monthly stay at Remus'.

Remus started, and nearly splashed tea all over the Sunday _Prophet_ crossword.

"Harry, it's not polite to keep pestering people about things from their past," he instructed.

"I know," Harry replied calmly. "It's just—haven't you ever wondered why he did it? Why don't you just go ask him?"

"I _know_ why he did it," Remus answered in clipped tones.

Harry propped his chin on his fist and widened his eyes. "Really? Did he tell you?"

"He didn't have to." Remus looked sad and a touch guilty for a moment, then turned back to his crossword. "Now, enough of that; help me with this clue. 48-across, six letters. Lead singer of the Hobgoblins, to his friends."

"Stubby," Harry answered automatically. "Do you blame yourself? Is that why you won't see him?"

Remus filled in the letters with so much pressure that his quill nib snapped and dripped ink all over the table.

"Bloody—" Remus muttered, Scourgifying the mess. Harry quirked a nervous smile. It took quite a bit to bring his Uncle Remus to curses. "Harry, we are _not_ having this conversation, and that is final. You need to learn that there are certain subjects that are simply off-limits."

"I know that. I really do," Harry reassured the man. "But did he tell you he was going to do it? Did he ask you to come with him? He must have said goodbye, at least," Harry speculated, ignoring the steadily darkening glower being directed at him. "Did he leave you something to remember him by?"

Harry was watching Remus like a hawk, and couldn't resist a small smile when the man's eyes darted, briefly, in the direction of his bedroom.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Harry suffered only a fleeting pang of guilt as he rummaged through his uncle's desk, later that afternoon. He had spelled Remus to sleep in front of the Omnivision, but, even so, he worked as quickly as he could. He wasn't sure how late Gringotts was open, never having been there.

There was no vault key in Remus' room, but there was something out of place. In his underwear drawer, folded into a pair of polka-dotted boxers, was a matchbox-sized metal contraption with a hinged lid and a small wheel. Engraved into the base was _'SOB to RJL, you are forever the light of my life'_. Harry, frowning, turned the wheel a few times, but nothing happened. Then he shook the contraption, and heard the sloshing of liquid, as well as a faint tinkle. Grinning, Harry vanished the metal casing along with the liquid, and a tiny, shining key fell into his hand.

"Gotcha," Harry muttered, tossing the gleaming gold key into the air and catching it.

It was a simple matter of a hooded cloak and a handful of floo powder to make his way to Gringotts incognito. Harry wanted to linger in the lobby and gawk at the bank's grand and dazzling interior, but he kept his head down and stuck to the plan. He presented the key wordlessly to the first teller available, and the tiny goblin inspected it meticulously, his bat-like ears twitching.

"Name?" the goblin asked, in a voice as short as he was. Harry shook his head wordlessly. He hadn't spent months studying Wizarding Law for nothing. A name was not necessary, and although the Ministry pressured the goblins to keep records of such things, the implacable race followed their own age-old ways. Harry could only hope that Sirius had not paid for any security measures on his vault that would require identification.

The goblin favoured Harry with an unimpressed look, and Harry self-consciously tugged his hood lower. "Come along, then," the small being instructed, returning the key before leading Harry away. It seemed Harry was in luck.

After a nausea-inducing trip at high speed through the vaults, Harry climbed on unsteady legs from the cart, before a wall full of small doors, perhaps a foot square each. The goblin pointed to the correct door, and Harry drew back with a gasp that he couldn't stifle.

He couldn't understand what he was seeing through the thick metal door. Inside the vault lay an unliving soul, the size of a small animal. Surely _that_ wasn't how Sirius had stored his memories. That would be ghoulish, even by Harry's standards. He had been expecting something along the lines of a pensieve.

Harry's heart pounded as he turned the tiny key with sweaty fingers. Inside the miniature vault was neither a pensieve nor an animal. The space was empty, save for a fist-sized chunk of glossy, sharp-edged, black obsidian, and the wisp of unmoving soul within it. Harry gaped at the sight stupidly until the goblin cleared his throat pointedly. Then Harry pocketed the rock with ginger care, and locked the vault again.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Harry turned the chunk of ensouled obsidian around and around in his hands as he lay on his bed in the attic of the cottage on Azkaban. At first, it had seemed opaque, but against the light it was darkly translucent. The origin of the stone itself, however, was the last of Harry's questions. How had Sirius split off a piece of his soul, and how had he anchored it? Had he employed a dementor? Surely not; he would have needed Voldemort's aid to communicate with one. Was there a spell for severing a soul, then? There must be. Or could a master psychomage manipulate his own soul at will?

"Planning to carve yourssself a knife?" Lady asked, lifting her head from Harry's chest lazily.

"Knife?" Harry asked, puzzled.

"Or an arrowhead? I wouldn't bother. You're bad enough at being a wizard, ssso don't go trying to be a muggle," she informed him in no uncertain terms.

"Don't worry, I'm not turning Palaeolithic on you," Harry hissed in reply. "Jussst wondering how I could chip off a bit of my sssoul."

Lady tilted her head and flicked her tongue out, tasting the air. "Will there be blood?" she asked eagerly.

Harry made a disgusted noise, and brought the obsidian closer, inspecting it minutely. There were glowing threads, so fine as to be nearly invisible, he realized, leading away from the bit of soul and in the direction of the prison. So that was it; Sirius had not truly severed this piece of his soul, but merely dislocated it. Harry had experimented with that already, but hadn't realized that memories could be affected.

Harry desperately wanted to experiment on the stone and its wisp of soul, but he was keenly aware of how irreversible any damage would be. Even so, after hours of temptation, he could not resist raising the stone to his lips and inhaling deeply. Grey spots danced in his vision, spreading rapidly until they merged into a bank of grey fog. And then, without warning, Harry was someone else.

_Gazing down at the small figure in the hospital bed, tracing every scratch and bite with his eyes, Sirius felt as though someone were squeezing his heart. It wasn't right that someone so kind and gentle had to suffer this kind of violence. He reached down for the slim, cool hand, and enclosed it in his own, trying to imbue some warmth. He had made up his mind. He wasn't just going to let his friend suffer alone anymore, not while there was anything he could do about it._

Grey fog swirled, and the vision shifted.

"_Padfoot, then," the boy curled up in the window seat said, with a smile playing about his lips. Sirius ached to taste those lips. Surely, they would taste like sunshine and honey. "Because you have such enormous paws."_

"_You know what they say about dogs with big paws," Sirius replied with a lecherous grin._

_Remus scoffed and turned his face away, trying to hide a slight blush. The rays of the setting sun made golden silk of his light brown hair. Sirius stuffed his hands into his pockets, resisting the temptation to run his fingers through that shining silk._

Grey fog.

_Sirius watched Remus' face from across the pillow as the smaller boy slept off the exhaustion of his monthly transformation. Sirius was weary, too, from a night spent in wild, frenetic play, but still he felt compelled to watch over the other boy. Remus sighed, blinking sleepily at Sirius._

"_Sirius?" he mumbled._

"_Yeah," Sirius answered, scooting forward for a light kiss._

"_James?" Remus asked, glancing around blearily. "Pete?"_

"_Back in the dorms," Sirius answered, caressing his lover's tangled hair._

_Remus made a contented sound, and cuddled into Sirius' chest, right where he belonged._

"_Love you, Pads," Remus murmured._

_Sirius wrapped his arms around the other boy in silent wonder. Something like a crashing wave was moving through him, and if he didn't hold on, he was going to be swept away._

Grey fog, and in the brief instant when Harry could remember who he was, he tore the stone from his lips. The wrenching effort left him dizzy and ill, but he didn't want to fall in deeper into those bittersweet memories. He felt disgusted with himself, as though he had violated something pure.

Downstairs, Harry heard his father snoring. That was his call to be off. He shoved Lady onto the bed unceremoniously, and pulled his shoes on, lacing them with a tossed-off spell. Then he clambered down from the small attic balcony, using a cushioning spell to jump the last few feet to the ground.

The sunlight hours were lengthening again, but night still ruled the day, and Harry was never so sure of himself as under cover of darkness. Navigating the treacherous underwater entrance to the grotto beneath Azkaban had long since become routine, and Harry's legs had grown stronger from scrambling up the perilous and winding stairs day after day. He waited at the top, impatiently, until the guard completed his hourly patrol of the tower, before darting out into the arctic winds.

"Sirius," Harry called, soft despite the silencing spell he had cast. He kicked the frosty iron bars of the animagus' cage. "Sirius!"

The shaggy black dog rolled over, and a bedraggled Pax wriggled out from underneath the gaunt beast, greeting Harry with silent flaps of his beak. Harry cast a warming spell at Sirius, and then floated the bowls of bacon, eggs, and toast through the bars. The black dog's nose twitched, and at once he was scarfing down the breakfast food, even before he had completed the transformation back to human. In less than a minute, Sirius was licking up the last of the eggs.

"Thank you," the dark-haired man said, bowing his head, for all the world as though he were taking a leisurely dinner at another pureblood's manor. The man had style; Harry had to grant him that. "For the warming spells, too. I only wish you could bring me a hot bath."

"I could probably work something out," Harry replied seriously, "but I think the guards would notice. They haven't seen Pax, have they?"

Sirius shook his head. "All's well. The dementors have been leaving me alone. They leave Rab alone, too, as long as I keep to that side of my cell."

"Thank you for that. I know there's no love lost between you two."

Sirius shrugged. "He's a vile little snake, all right, but he was never as bad as some of them. Bark's worse than his bite, you might say."

Harry was glad to hear that, since Rab was positively insufferable at times. "Never mind him," he said impatiently. "I have it."

"You have what?"

"Your memories," Harry answered, grinning broadly, as he pulled the chunk of rough obsidian from his satchel and held it up to catch the pale starlight.

Sirius stared expressionlessly at the glassy black rock for a long time, until Harry began to pout.

"I found the key and the vault," Harry explained.

"Obviously. How?" Sirius asked flatly.

Harry looked a little guilty. "Well, I sort of know your, er, lover."

"Former lover. Who wants nothing to do with me."

"It's not like that," Harry protested. "He's all broken up over it, even after all these years."

"'He'?" Sirius asked, startled.

Harry nodded distractedly. "I think he feels like it's partly his fault," Harry continued, "because he's…well, you'll understand once you have the memories back."

Sirius looked away, frowning.

"Do you know how to retrieve the memories?" Harry asked intently. "I can't even think how you got them in there to start with. And why a rock, of all things?"

"The magical and optical properties make obsidian the ideal"—Sirius broke off, shaking his head. "Never mind; you don't have the arithmancy for it anyway."

Harry scowled, but when Sirius extended his skeletal arm, Harry eagerly placed the obsidian in his palm.

Sirius examined the stone closely. "They're in here, all right," he allowed.

After a moment, Sirius touched the stone to his forehead, and Harry sat forward, pressing his face to the bars to get a closer look. The infinitesimal strands that connected the scrap of soul in the rock to Sirius' much larger soul were drawing taut and beginning to quiver with energy. As the moments ticked by in silence, the displaced scrap of soul was drawn thread by thread into the orbit of the rest of Sirius' soul, until the black rock was left empty. Then it fell from Sirius' limp fingers and shattered like glass against the frigid stone floor.

There was a long, fraught moment as Harry dipped his head to try to see up under the curtain of matted black hair and into Sirius' face. Then Harry noticed the tears spattering onto the stone below, and turned away, embarrassed. There was nothing worse than watching someone else cry, except crying oneself, in his opinion.

"I'll, erm—I'll just come back tomorrow, shall I?" Harry asked hesitantly, folding his arms awkwardly.

There was no reply. Harry fled.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

"If you had, hypothetically, Obliviated yourself of all your memories of the person you loved, don't you think you'd be happy to get those memories back?" Harry asked, all in a rush.

It had been a week since Sirius had regained his memories, and the man still refused to speak to Harry in anything more than monosyllables, no matter how much hot food Harry brought him. He had even incited Rab to have a go at the man, but to no avail.

Bjorn set his tea cup down and looked at Harry dubiously. "Do I even want to know what you've gotten yourself into this time, _fugleunge_?"

Harry exhaled dejectedly. "Probably not. But don't you think you'd be at least a little happy?"

"I suppose that depends on what I've been doing without these hypothetical memories. Did I insult my loved one unforgivably? Did I get married to someone else?"

"Well, let's just say, hypothetically, of course, that you joined a Dark Lord and became a mass murderer."

Bjorn sipped his tea calmly. "Hmm. And what does my loved one think of that?"

"Erm…I think he thinks you should be in Azkaban."

"Naturally."

"Yeah. So…do you happen to know where they bury people around here?"

Bjorn looked startled for a moment, and then began to chuckle.


	11. Charnel Ground

o─-o─-o─-─-─-─ **WITHOUT THORN THE ROSE** ─-─-─-─o-─o-─o

Summary: When Lily died she left a broken James to raise a stranger's son. When a drunken act of violence sees James demoted to prison guard, Harry is inducted into the mysteries of Azkaban, and begins to solve the mysteries of his own existence, as well. SLASH. AH/AU. Some RL/SB, RL/JP, future LV/HP in sequels.

Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling.

Warnings: SLASH. But not in this chapter.

Notes: The semester and my exams are finished, so I now have a lot more time to devote to writing. For some reason I had a lot of trouble with this chapter. Probably it could be a lot better, but I just want to keep pushing forward. I really wanted to end this chapter on a cliff-hanger (you can guess where), too, but couldn't manage it. Don't forget to check out my Pinterest (under the same name), for more background info, if you're interested. Also, there is a poll on my author's page now; thanks for participating.

o─-─-─-─-─ 11. CHARNEL GROUND ─-─-─-─-─o

Yule¹ came and went without much to-do. There were no logs to be had on the island, and neither Potter felt much like toasting or feasting. James worked right through the holiday, in fact, and only belatedly remembered to give Harry a present, which wound up being some galleons. Remus sent Harry a muggle book of philosophy and a ring that produced wisps of glowing Patronus magic in the presence of dementors. Harry sent the book to Luna and the ring to Neville, who would probably die of fright if he ever met a real dementor. For Sirius and Rab, he swiped a veritable feast from the mess hall. For James, Remus, and Bjorn, Harry carved figurines from iridescent sea-shells: a wolf, a stag, and a bear. Bjorn gave Harry a sack of home-made reindeer jerky in exchange.

Despite his rather lacklustre Yule effort, Harry was actually spending most of his time working on a rather more grand present. Progress was slow, however.

Glamours had been a complete disappointment. At best, they were nothing more than mental razzle-dazzle that wouldn't hold up to close scrutiny, and, worse, could not be maintained remotely. Medimagic was right out. Suspended animation spells were best left to the wand of a mediwizard, unless Harry fancied brain damage. Runes, too, had been a dead end. The subject was bafflingly complex, so much so that Harry could scarcely begin to comprehend how much he did not comprehend. Not to mention the danger of unpredictable interactions with pre-existing runes. Complete disfigurement was a tempting option of last resort, but regrettably implausible.

No, in the end, it simply had to be a potion. As weeks of frenzied research passed, and his bedroom became ever more cluttered with esoteric texts, Harry found himself uncharacteristically sympathetic to the tawdry concerns of Omnivision script writers. Plotting a perfect crime was harder than it looked, and Harry was not above resorting to a cliché.

That decided, he turned his efforts to obtaining the potion. Hackneyed premise though it might be, the precise list of ingredients was always carefully concealed from the audience, and Harry could ill afford to be on record as having requested any restricted items from Diagon Alley. He would have to resort to another incognito mission during his next week with Remus.

In the meantime, Harry busied himself with the other half of the plan. If this had been an Omnivision comedy, he would have been trying to dispose of a dead body. There was little humour to be found, however, in trying to obtain one. Bjorn had been surprisingly knowledgeable about how remains were disposed of when a deceased prisoner's family did not want them, and Harry had been taken aback by the antiquated nature of the interment, if it could be called that. Given that the fortress of Azkaban had been constructed in the days of Merlin, however, Harry supposed that it was natural enough to take advantage of the pre-existing facilities.

So it was that Harry found himself, at the break of dawn on a foggy morning in January, creeping along the side of a cliff like a salamander. The sticky spell he was using on his hands and feet worked best on bare skin, so his boots were slung around his neck with the laces tied together, and Harry had already stepped in more than one pile of fresh bird leavings. Despite Harry's confidence in his magic, cliff-scaling was a perilous enterprise, which was his reason for waiting until daylight. Between the damp mist and the continual spray of sea foam, the rough stone was treacherously slick with moss, lichen, and water.

This particular cliff was not far from the grotto beneath the waves, but given Harry's nocturnal habits, he had never noticed anything peculiar about the openings in the cliff. In daylight, and from close range, however, they were clearly manmade. Harry passed the first aperture ten metres up, and there were a dozen more scattered about the rock face. The cavities might have been rectangular, once, but they had long since been worn into smooth, oblong ovals by centuries of wind and rain. Each was long enough for a man to lie down in, but low enough that his head would brush the ceiling if he sat up. Their depths held impenetrable shadows, and although Harry knew that they connected to a system of caves beneath Azkaban, he could not help thinking that the apertures resembled portals into Hades itself.

The first few openings he passed held only birds and their nests, but halfway up the cliff Harry had his first sight of the real purpose of the excavations. A red, gore-coated skeleton was splayed carelessly in the aperture, one hand dangling over the edge. Most of the meat was gone, but gobbets of flesh hung from its cage of ribs, and crows pecked hungrily in the eye sockets. Even as Harry watched, a large, black rat scurried from the shadows and began to gnaw at a finger with its skin and nail still intact.²

Harry clung to the rocks, transfixed for a moment by the macabre tableau. _That'll be me someday—nothing but gore and bones. A feast for rooks or rats or worms. _With that in mind, he got to work.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

¹ Yule or Yuletide is a mid-winter religious festival observed by the Northern European peoples, later being absorbed into and equated with the Christian festival of Christmas.

² There is strong evidence that this method of disposal of bodies, called excarnation, was used in Iron Age Britain, and it is still used in some parts of the world. See my Pinterest for more info.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

It was another week before Harry's next visit with Remus on the mainland. He spent his days, as ever, studying and practicing, and his nights visiting his two relatives atop the highest tower of Azkaban. Sirius remained a silent, brooding enigma, scarcely acknowledging Harry's presence, and the animagus' sour mood seemed to have rubbed off on Rabastan, who was more volatile than ever. Harry, too, became grouchy and glum as the days dragged on. He was playing a waiting game, and Harry had always been the sort of player who would far rather lose in a blaze of glory than win by playing it safe.

At last, the day came. Once Remus was snoring on the sofa in a spell-induced stupor, Harry slipped into his cowled cloak and flooed quickly to three different locations in succession, ending finally at Diagon Alley. He hoped that his deep hood would once again suffice to keep him anonymous, but, if not, he had taken further measures this time. Harry's glamours tended to slip unpredictably without the constant use of a mirror, so rather than disguise himself, he had opted for total obfuscation. A black mist surrounded his head under the hood, allowing Harry to see out, but no one else to see in. He had often used this spell, even whilst sleeping, to block the light through his window, and was confident in his ability to maintain it.

The next day was Imbolc¹, and Diagon Alley was more crowded than usual, as wizards and witches made last-minute preparations for their feasts and ceremonies, and the more than usual amount of litter, squalling children, and arguing families served to darken Harry's mood and spawn a headache.

Even Knockturn was more crowded than usual, though its occupants seemed to move more furtively and eye each other more warily than their more respectable counterparts. Harry had never been more than a couple of metres into Knockturn, but he had always thought it appropriate that one had to descend a flight of steps to enter the dodgy little district. There was a definite sense of lowness down there, in more ways than one.

Some of Knockturn was above ground, but most of it was underneath Diagon. Down there, where the refuse of Diagon was swept to keep it out of sight, rats squabbled over the leavings of wizards, and wizards squabbled for the choicest begging spots and the softest rag piles. Knockturn was where the trash of the wizarding world came to rest—the burnouts and the dropouts, the wandless and the luckless, the addicts and the deviants. Harry guessed he was one of the latter.

As he made his way down the grimy, unevenly spaced stone stairs, Harry self-consciously tugged his hood a bit lower, and checked his darkness spell. At the bottom of the steps, a grungy shape, which had seemed to be only a pile of refuse, reared up before Harry. It was a wizened crone with a mole the size of a knut on the end of her nose, and she shoved a tray of fingernails into Harry's face. He recoiled in alarm and disgust.

"Got human _an' _hag," she shrilled in a nasal voice, squinting into the pitch black of his cowl. Harry realized that the mole was moving. It was not a mole at all, but rather a beetle. The contents of his stomach lurched, but he managed to keep it down. As he watched, the beetle began to crawl down the crone's nose and across her cheek. Harry reeled away from the woman and continued down the alley.

A tall, gaunt, and well-dressed man passed Harry as he continued down the Alley, and Harry felt a light flutter as the man's magic patted him down, making the few galleons in Harry's pocket clink. Harry hissed in the man's direction, and flexed his power of frost slightly, making the man's breath turn white. The man, who had been walking quickly as though he intended to brush past Harry, suddenly veered away on a different course, averting his eyes.

Ahead, the stone arch where Knockturn burrowed beneath Diagon loomed. Beyond it was darkness broken only by torches and what little sunlight filtered down through cracks and grates. Harry wrapped his black wool cloak tighter about himself. The aboveground part of Knockturn sold items that were darker and more dangerous than any found in Diagon Alley, yes, but the truly dark goods were traded only in places hidden from the light. Or so Harry had been told. Harry had persuaded Rab to give him directions to a suitable establishment, though he had not revealed his purpose.

As Harry passed him, a drunk sitting propped in the mouth of a side-alley dropped his bottle and scrabbled into a deeper patch of shadows. His mouth stretched wide, but only mist issued forth. Harry realized that he was unconsciously continuing to freeze the air around him from anxiety. He forced himself to relax. The last thing he wanted was to give anyone cause to remember his presence.

Harry slowed as he stepped into the shadows at the mouth of the tunnel, glancing around avidly. The subterranean portion of the Alley gave the impression of being abandoned; many of the doors bore no signs, and their windows were often as not obscured by grime or drawn shades. If not for the dozens glowing souls nearby, Harry might have thought he was quite alone. He steered well clear of a narrow passage in one wall, where two human souls lurked, and picked up his pace.

Harry passed Borgin and Burke's, and glanced longingly at a few antique grimoires in the window. One was _Oulden Rygts_, a book Harry had tried to acquire through legal channels, what seemed an age ago. It surprised him to see a banned book flaunted so openly, but Knockturn abided by its own rules, and the Aurors left it alone, for the most part, so long as no one from down below tried to come up above. Occasionally, beggars and pickpockets did sneak into Diagon, tempted by the galleons, but they were swiftly shown their place again. There was little mercy in the wizarding world.

Finally, Harry came to the door Rab had described. It was short and squat, hardly fit for humans, with only the crude cauldron symbol scratched into the paint giving any indication of its purpose. Harry opened the door gingerly, and slipped inside, ducking his head slightly. He did not see the glowing line of runes etched around the inside of the doorjamb until he was halfway through. For a moment, he paused, checking that his hood was down and his darkness in place, and then proceeded. The runes were a security measure, he supposed, and if they were not, he was still well capable of defending himself, with his magic or without it.

Inside, the smell of caustic potion fumes assaulted Harry. He sneezed, and a small, leathery little man lifted his head from atop the cash register, which he had been hugging as he snored. The man's eyes were rimmed with red, and he squinted at Harry with undisguised curiosity. Harry gave the man a curt nod and ducked down an aisle.

The shelves were lined with jars and boxes, each packed to the brim with potions ingredients, and, in a few alarming cases, spilling over. Something squished under his leather boot at the end of one aisle, and Harry wondered what sort of potions had been accidentally mixed by customers' boots. Some of the ingredients were alive, kept in murky tanks along the back wall; one greenish fungus followed Harry with stalked eyes as he passed. The last aisle contained premade potions, and Harry perused these carefully, but the one he required was not present. Disappointed, Harry approached the storekeeper.

"How much to have a potion made up?" he asked the little man at the register.

The leathery little man stared at Harry for a moment, his eyes seeking to penetrate the gloom obscuring Harry's face. "Depends on the potion," he wheezed at last, and then bent over to hack something foul into a handkerchief.

"How much for the Draught of Living Death?"

The man snuffled wetly, and tucked his handkerchief away again. "What concentration are ye wanting?"

Harry hesitated. "Concentration?"

The small man eyed Harry askance, with his red-rimmed, watery orbs. "Aye. Will ye be killing the blighter, or just putting him to sleep?"

"Just to sleep. But I want him to seem dead."

"_Figured_ that," the man snorted disdainfully, rummaging around under his counter. "Says that on the tin, don't it?" He drew out an unlabelled black vial and set it on the counter.

"Are you sure that's it?" Harry asked sceptically.

The man lifted the bottle and showed Harry the symbol etched on the bottom: three zeds and a skull.

"So?" Harry asked sharply. "How much?"

The man tapped the glass vial on the counter absently, thinking. "A hundred galleons."

Harry exhaled sharply. The man must think him a fool. "Try again," he replied shortly.

The leathery storekeeper snuffled again and gave Harry the stink-eye. "Make me an offer."

"Five." That was half of what Harry had in his pocket, and more than his research indicated it was worth.

The man grumbled, and they negotiated a while longer, but after Harry made to leave, the man backed down and sold him the potion for five. Something about the way the man's soul spun was making Harry queasy, and by the time he had his hand on the knob to leave, his lunch was threatening to make a reappearance.

"Ye won't be wanting the antidote, then?" the man called after Harry.

Harry spun, his cloak fluttering, and glared venomously at the man. The storekeeper grinned, a grotesque expression on his leathery face. Harry resisted the urge to yank the man's nauseating soul out through his teeth.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

¹ Imbolc is a Gaelic festival associated with the goddess Brighid, held 31 Jan-1 Feb. Traditional celebration activities would have involved offerings, special foods, bonfires, divination, holy wells, etc.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

By the time Harry left the shop, both vials stowed safely in his pocket, which no longer contained any galleons, his head was pounding, and his mouth tasted of bile. So it was not until he was halfway back to Diagon that he realized he was being followed. The dark figures ducked into shops or alleyways whenever Harry glanced back, but they were after him. That much he knew, though the reason eluded him. He ducked into an alleyway of his own and stood flat against a brick wall, covering himself with the light-bending invisibility spell that he still had not perfected. It would camouflage him if he held still, but any movement, or a strong light, would reveal him.

Two men, one tall and thin, one squat and fat, entered the alleyway with wands drawn. The twigs that Bjorn had taught Harry to sneer at did not seem so worthless when they were aimed at him.

"_Homenum Revelio_," the short man hissed, and Harry ducked instinctively, knowing his cover was blown. The next instant, a bolt of red light shot over his head and gouged half a brick out of the wall.

Harry lifted his coral-pierced hand and sent three metal rubbish-eating bins flying toward the men. They were knocked aside mid-air and flattened against the walls of the alleyway with a _crunch_. Harry could have pulled the men's souls out, or frozen them solid, but, much as he had come to love the island of Azkaban, he didn't know that he wanted to stay there forever. Instead, he ran.

Harry blasted both men with magic that was half deliberate and half accidental as he darted between them. The tall one cursed and recoiled, but the short one shielded himself and continued to shoot red bolts at Harry. Ahead of them, the patrons of the Alley fled into shops or dove into alleyways rather than lending a hand. Harry was disgusted, but not surprised. His magic had formed a shield behind him instinctively, and the red bolts ricocheted off it and into buildings. A rain of shattered bricks and wood chips fell at Harry's heels.

Then a bolt of leaf-green struck ahead and to the side of Harry, slicing through the edge of his shield, and his heart seized up with raw, unadulterated terror. _What kind of men kill in broad daylight?_

Another green bolt struck. Harry threw wave after wave of magic behind himself—razors of air, walls of fire—but his pursuers were never deterred for long. He was just steps from rounding the corner and dashing up the steps to Diagon Alley and safety when it happened.

Something struck him between the shoulders like a finger of ice, and then, all around him was—

Green light.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

The light, like the summer sun through leaves, swayed all around Harry, and it seemed that rather than being rocked by the waves, he undulated with them. A clear, sweet, soprano melody drifted to him, along with the far-away chiming of bells. The swirling tendrils of light swayed, shifted, and began to rotate gently. Harry watched with a dream-like fascination as a vortex spun into being before him. Its centre seemed to stretched impossibly far away into the distance, and Harry tried to move forward, to peer deeper, but then he was being drawn away, like falling into space, and—

Something was striking his head rhythmically, making it throb and pound. Harry opened his eyes. A strip of bright blue sky moved past between dingy buildings. Harry tilted his head slightly, flinching at the pain, so that he could see where he was. A dark-cloaked figure, squat and fat, was dragging him by the ankle through a filthy alleyway full of puddles, broken glass, and refuse.

A surge of rage rose within Harry, and before he knew quite what he did, his breath was frosting and all the dirty grey puddles had frozen solid. The man shrieked, just once, and then he fell, frozen as solid as a stone, to the ground, and shattered.

Harry scrambled to his feet, head spinning like a top about to fall over, and stared about him wildly, searching for danger. The tall, thin man did not appear, however, and at last Harry let his gaze fall to what had become of the short, stout one. The man's head had cracked right down the middle, and his brain was dribbling out onto the pavement. One hand had snapped off and skidded several metres down the alleyway. Much of the torso had shattered into finer pieces and was now an undifferentiated mass of gore, but the legs were largely intact, though split into several segments.

Harry leaned over and vomited at length.

He had to get away, but staggering into Diagon in his current state would be disastrous. Harry cast several cleaning spells over himself first. The spells were better suited for furniture than humans, but a careful examination of his hands and cloak revealed no blood. Harry pulled up his hood, and left the alleyway at the fastest pace he could manage without running. As he started up the steps to Diagon, something pulled at his cloak, and Harry whirled, blasting raw magic at whoever had touched him.

The crone with her tray of fingernails slid shrieking down the Alley, clutching at her horrid beetle, which had been crushed along with her nose. Harry ran.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Remus took one look at Harry's face when he came to the table for dinner, and knew something was wrong. He forced Harry down onto a chair and knelt before him, feeling his forehead and casting diagnostic spells.

"What's the matter?" Remus questioned in a soft yet firm tone.

"Nothing," Harry muttered, unable to meet his uncle's eyes.

"Harry."

Harry hung his head and covered his face with his hands. He wanted to scream, cry, and hit something, all at once.

"Are you ill?"

"No."

"Did something happen while I was asleep?"

"No."

"You're still hopeless at lying, Harry, you know that?"

Harry choked on a small sob, then shoved past Remus and ran to the guest room, where he slammed the door and barred it with his magic. When the beating on the door grew too much, he silenced it with a wave of his hand. Then he waved his hand again, and the desk chair flew across the room and splintered against the wall. Another wave, and the desk followed. Again. Again. Until nothing remained but quivering shards of woods stuck into the walls and ceiling.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

"Remus told me something…happened…while you were at his place," James tried hesitantly, the night Harry returned from his visit at Remus'.

Harry shrugged, wondering why his father even cared.

"So? Anything I need to know?"

Harry stared blankly into space for a moment. _I murdered someone. Oh, yeah, and I died. Again._

"No."

James favoured Harry with a long, disbelieving look, then dismissed the matter with a grunt. They never spoke of the incident again.

That night Harry dreamt of being chased through a nightmare version of Knockturn Alley, where the buildings twisted into obscene shapes, and demented faces leered at him from yawning doorways. As he ran, the street became steeper and steeper, until he was inching along it on his hands and knees, clinging to cracks in the pavement with bloody fingernails. Behind him, his pursuers plodded toward him at a slow inexorable pace. Their faces were smooth ovals devoid of features. Terror choked Harry, he could not get away, he could not _breath_, and all around him were the sounds of guttural screaming…

…Someone was stroking his hair. Harry gasped, and the screaming stopped. For a moment he did not know where he was or what was happening. Then he realized that James had woken him from the nightmare. He must have heard Harry screaming in his sleep. A surge of gratitude flooded Harry's body, like some palliative potion.

"Thanks," he whispered hoarsely.

James said nothing, only continued to stroke Harry's head until his son fell back to sleep.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Bjorn's little ship tied up at the jetty while Harry was throwing stones from atop the nearby promontory into the dismal sea, but for a long while, Harry ignored it. He wasn't ready to talk yet. Not until the scent of freshly brewed tea wafted up to him did Harry deign to dislodge himself from the muddy grass. The scent was as good as a written invitation, considering the breeze was going the opposite direction.

Harry slouched down to the pier and climbed the rope ladder aboard, then let himself into the tiny cabin. At his usual spot, the _Prophet_ was folded to an article on the back page of the news section.

_**VIOLENCE IN KNOCKTURN ALLEY**_

_Knockturn Alley was the scene of a violent exchange of dark magic shortly after 4 p.m. Saturday, leaving two dead and one on the lam. Aurors were alerted by dark magic detectors, which indicated the Killing Curse had been cast. Witnesses reported seeing a small figure being chased by two larger figures. None of the three could be identified by witnesses. One body was found in an alleyway, having been mutilated and slain by dark magic, while the other body, felled by the Killing Curse, is presumed to have been taken by the remaining suspect, who fled the scene. The known deceased, Roger Porpington, was a repeat petty offender, known by the DMLE to be a potions addict. He was a graduate of Hogwarts, '81, and is survived by his estranged wife._

Harry scanned the article's contents in a few seconds, then shoved it aside so forcefully that it fell to the floor.

"I thought you might have been a witness," Bjorn explained, setting a cup of steaming tea in front of Harry.

Harry laughed humourlessly. "Yeah. I guess you could say that."

"I found the wording of the article rather intriguing. For example, what do you suppose they meant by 'mutilated'?"

Harry's stomach flopped like a fish in air, and he pushed the cup of tea away. "Does it matter?"

Bjorn shrugged. "Not really, just thought it might get you talking."

"I don't want to talk. Unless you have any idea how they saw through my disguise."

Bjorn's lips quirked into a slight smile, as though he were satisfied with himself. Then he shrugged casually. "Charms, runes, potions…there are plenty of ways to find out a person's name or see through their veils. You used a glamour?"

Harry shook his head, biting one of his nails. "A cloak and a bit of darkness, that's all. I did step through a rune circle, though."

Bjorn raised his eyebrows. "You stepped into an unfamiliar rune circle? You might have come out in the middle of the North Sea, or with an extra head, for all you knew."

"It was a shop," Harry defended, though without much vigour. "He wouldn't stay in business if he did that to his customers."

"And what did this shop sell?"

"Potions."

Bjorn nodded. "You know there are potions that let you see into the infrared and ultraviolet range?" Harry looked puzzled. Bjorn rolled his eyes. "Colours that are normally invisible to humans. Your darkness spell probably only blocks visible light. He probably made your identity twice over, and sold it for a sack of coin."

Harry looked dejected, remembering the red-rimmed eyes of the shopkeeper. "All right, I get it, I was stupid. I already knew that."

"Well, you survived, so you must have done something right."

"I didn't."

"What's that?"

"I died. They got me with _Avada Kedavra_."

Bjorn just blinked a few times. "Well, you survived it once, why not twice? But why do you say you died?"

"There was this…light…" Bjorn cocked a bushy eyebrow, and Harry flushed, feeling ridiculous. "Oh, I don't know," he said, hanging his head. "Maybe it was just a dream. It didn't feel like a dream, though."

"Just because it's a dream doesn't mean it's not real," Bjorn offered, nudging Harry's untouched cup of tea back toward the boy.

Harry waved the cup away. "I guess. I wish it was _all_ just a dream."

"Want to tell me about it?" Bjorn's tone was gruff, but with an air of sympathy.

Harry shook his head vehemently. "I don't even want to _think_ about it," he muttered.

A heavy silence hung between them for a moment.

"The only thing you did wrong," Bjorn said finally, "was not killing them both while you had the chance."

Harry nodded slowly. Next time, he would not hesitate.

"So, did you get the potions?"

"Yes. I have everything I need now."

"Except the agreement of the principle figures involved, I take it?"

"They'd only try to stop me," Harry replied dismissively.

"This time next week, then?"

Harry nodded, and smiled for the first time in several days. "This time next week, Sirius Black will be on his way home."

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Don't forget to vote in my poll! Thanks, everyone.


	12. Coming Clean

o─-o─-o─-─-─-─ **WITHOUT THORN THE ROSE** ─-─-─-─o-─o-─o

Summary: When Lily died she left a broken James to raise a stranger's son. When a drunken act of violence sees James demoted to prison guard, Harry is inducted into the mysteries of Azkaban, and begins to solve the mysteries of his own existence, as well. SLASH. AH/AU. Some RL/SB, RL/JP, future LV/HP in sequels.

Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling.

Warnings: SLASH. We're finally getting to some.

Notes: No new pins for this chapter. I still can't find a good model for Remus. I'm open to suggestions at this point. Don't forget I still have a poll up – I'll leave it open until next time.

o─-─-─-─-─ 12. COMING CLEAN ─-─-─-─-─o

The day of Sirius Black's death was damp and drizzly. Mist crowned the highlands of Azkaban, shrouding the prison in a cloud but for the sky-scraping tower. Harry, who was so anxious that he hadn't managed more than a few bites of breakfast, went over his plan ad nauseam, pacing a rut into the floorboards of his attic bedroom. It was a relief when at last James left for work, and Harry was able to set off soon after, with two baskets of fresh food, several flasks, and a box containing a shrunken, half-defleshed corpse.

Climbing the twisted stair, Harry's hands trembled so much that he almost lost his grip and tumbled down into darkness. He cursed himself at length while clinging to the absurdly steep stairs, which were damp with humidity. Ever since being attacked in Knockturn, he had been experiencing transient episodes of panic, and none of his usual meditation techniques seemed to help. One of the flasks in his pocket was a calming potion, and he downed the entire bottle before resuming the climb. The potion stilled his trembling hands and slowed his racing heart, but his brain still chased itself in circles, painting vivid scenes of everything that could go awry.

The tower-top seemed a ship lost on a sea of fog. Harry wanted to go straight to Sirius' cell, but Rab's voice called to him first.

"Boy! Over here!"

"Hello, Uncle Rab," Harry greeted the auburn-haired Death Eater.

"Didn't manage to get your throat slit in Knockturn, then?" the man replied, looking him over with a crooked twist of his lips.

Harry glared. "No thanks to you. You might have warned me about that rune circle at the potions shop."

Rab tried for an innocent look, but only managed to look guiltier than ever. "Was there one? It's been a long time." He rubbed his hands together greedily. "What did you bring me today?"

Harry grumbled to himself and passed a basket of breakfast food through the bars. Rab attacked it with a vigour that belied his half-starved, skeletal state. "I've got to talk to Sirius now," Harry explained, turning away.

"Bloody mutt," Rab spat, spraying crumbs that he picked up and shoved back in his mouth. "_I'm_ your uncle. Keep favouring him and I'll start to think you don't care for me."

Harry looked away uneasily, as if for an escape hatch from the conversation. "Sorry. We'll talk later."

Harry left Rab muttering imprecations to himself. He found Sirius in dog form, as usual, huddled in his blanket. A bedraggled Pax sailed through the grimy fabric and alit on Harry's shoulder. Harry woke Sirius with a warming spell, and slid the basket of food through the bars. Sirius moved as if to eat while still in dog form, but Harry stopped him with a quick shield.

"Sorry, but don't you think you'll enjoy it more in human form?" Harry urged. Sirius cocked his head, then shifted, with obvious effort that left him panting on hands and knees.

"Thanks," the dark-haired Death Eater muttered, before shovelling the food into his mouth. He hadn't consumed more than a bite or two, however, before he directed a dark glower at Harry. "What is _this_?"

"Breakfast," Harry tried, keeping his face as blank as he could.

Sirius just stared at Harry for a long moment. "If you want to kill me, you can at least tell me why," he declared evenly.

Harry's stomach fluttered in spite of the hefty dose of calming potion. "It's not poison, I promise."

"I have a rather good nose, you know, on account of being a dog animagus," Sirius replied. He sniffed a piece of toast at length, then frowned. "This is Draught of Living Death. You either want me dead or helpless. So which is it?"

Harry sighed noisily, annoyed. "Why would I go to all the trouble of getting you your memories back, fattening you up, letting you keep my patronus, and then off you? What's the point of that?"

"You tell me." The man's dark eyes glittered as they searched Harry's face, and the boy felt a brush of legilimency against his mind.

"Stop it," Harry snapped, repelling the invasion easily, as James had taught him. "I'm getting you out of here, all right?"

Sirius' face was blank with shock for a moment. Then he pushed the basket of food away with his long, bony fingers, and turned his face resolutely to the wall. "Save yourself the trouble. I don't want out."

Harry's mouth dropped open. "Are you joking? You can't even imagine how much trouble I've had putting this plan together. I almost _died_ for your sake, you—you—ungrateful mutt!"

"I could have saved you the effort, if you had bothered asking," the man replied, rather rudely, Harry thought.

"If you really want to rot away in here, why don't you just cut to the chase and—I don't know, bite your wrists or something?" Harry demanded.

Sirius smiled grimly, displaying the runic tattoo that marked him a prisoner of Azkaban. Then he turned his hand over and showed Harry a set of white, dotted scars on the inside of his wrist—dog bites.

Harry's stomach sank. He had known Sirius was depressed, but hadn't an inkling that it was so bad. He recovered quickly, however, resolute in his plan. "Well, I don't bloody care what you want. You either eat that food, or I'll damn well shove it down your gullet," he informed the stubborn prisoner.

"Why?" Sirius asked tonelessly. "What do you care? Are you in the Junior Death Eater League or something?"

"It's not for _your_ sake, believe me," Harry answered snippily.

Sirius snorted derisively. "There isn't a soul alive who cares if I live or die."

"That isn't true. There's someone who very much cares about you."

Sirius froze, looking poleaxed. His eyes darted to Harry, then back to the wall. "I don't want to see him," he muttered quietly.

"Too bad. It's the least you can do for abandoning him all these years. Anyway, I don't believe you."

Sirius mulled this over, looking intensely troubled. Harry began to feel hints of doubt and guilt adulterating his self-righteous determination.

"Like a penance, you mean?" Sirius asked finally, raking his fingers through his matted dreadlocks.

"If that makes it easier for you," Harry replied irritably.

"He really wants me back?"

"I haven't asked. If he doesn't, you can consider yourself free to go off and die somewhere, if that's what you really want."

Sirius sighed, hanging his head. "Do you really know what you're doing?"

Harry shrugged. "It's a good plan, and everything's in place. You'll go to sleep here and wake up there, a free man."

"A fugitive."

"Better that than a prisoner."

Sirius glanced suspiciously at Harry. "What's in it for you?"

Harry half-smiled. "He's my godfather. He practically raised me. Anyway, there's nothing else to do for fun around here."

Sirius considered this for a moment, still eyeing Harry with undisguised distrust. Eventually, however, he nodded, once. "All right."

Harry deflated with relief. He nudged the basket of now cold food toward his cousin, and Sirius wolfed it down, moving more and more sluggishly, until his eyes rolled up in his head and he collapsed. Harry cleaned up the remaining food and waited. Sirius' chest slowed and then stopped, and the kaleidoscopic tangle of his soul stilled as well, turning white, as souls did upon death. Harry watched the luminescent spirals warily, but they showed no sign of dissolving. Last of all, the man's runic prisoner tattoo faded, having lost the magic that powered it.

Sirius would remain in a state of suspended animation indistinguishable from death, until he received the antidote that Harry had nearly paid for with his life. The dark-haired boy cast a spell to repel animals, then retreated to the hidden stair and waited for the wizenguards' patrol.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Several hours' time found Harry crouching in the highest of the cliff tunnels, waiting for the wizenguards bringing the body to be excarnated. The stone floor around Harry was littered with bird and rat droppings, broken claws, and tiny human bones, some as yellowed as ancient ivory, others still bearing snippets of tendon. Where the larger bones were taken after the flesh had been stripped away, he did not know, though a careful inspection of the beaches indicated that at least some of them fell into the sea. When the sound of footsteps approached at last, Harry scuttled back, using magic to silence his movements, and waited with baited breath for the body to be placed.

There was a long wait, while the wizenguards came and went, and Harry counted thirteen souls. He wondered why so many were present. Finally, a louder voice called the others to silence, and then all of the guards began a call and response chant, in Latin, of all things. It was strangely touching to think that the guards cared enough to perform some sort of funerary rites. Harry had imagined that they would regard the prisoners' bodies as a kind of refuse. He strained to make out the words, which echoed strangely in the roughly carved chamber, and were swallowed by the roar of the waves and wind. The word _mater_ was repeated several times, but the rest was unintelligible.

At last, the souls filed out, returning to the upper reaches of the prison, and Harry crawled back to the cliff face, using sticky spells on his hands and feet to clamber from one aperture to another until he located Sirius. A couple of rats were investigating already, but Harry's spell thankfully kept them from digging into the feast. Harry took the small box from his shirt pocket, removed the half-eaten skeleton he had stolen weeks ago, and restored it to its original size.

Bjorn had warned Harry against trying to shrink a living being, and Harry, after committing several atrocities against bird-kind, had conceded the point. Instead, he cast a feather-light charm on Sirius, and stuffed the Death Eater unceremoniously into a canvas sack with a space-expanding charm. The sack, which was small enough on the outside to be tucked into Harry's shirt pocket, was what Bjorn's Yule gift of reindeer jerky had been wrapped in, although Harry hadn't realized the sack's magical nature until James had exclaimed with a distended gut that perhaps the hairy brute of a captain was not so bad after all. Harry took the gift for what it was: plausible deniability.

Escaped prisoner in hand, Harry kicked off from the cliff and arched back into the fog, thrilling to the rush of air in his ears and the weightless fall, until he hit the waves with his cushioning charm. It was time to go home.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

To Harry's dismay, Remus arrived with Bjorn the next day, and insisted on speaking to James before he left. The werewolf's shaggy silver patronus was dispatched to the prison with a message, and Harry was relegated to the kitchen while the two men talked behind a magically muffling shield. Despite the spell, Harry could hear the two men's voices rise and fall with agitation. Peeking around the corner, he could see that James was firmly in denial mode, his eyes flat and his arms cross. Remus, on the other hand, waved his arms around in the air and gesticulated vehemently in the direction of the kitchen.

Harry ducked back, heart beating a little erratically, and continued preparing a plate of sandwiches, all too conscious of the escaped prisoner currently tucked into his shirt pocket. When a lull in the argument finally presented itself, he brought out the food, and the make-shift family enjoyed an awkward and mostly silent lunch. Then James escaped to the prison, and Harry and Remus walked back along the beaten grass path to the small harbour.

"I'm sorry you had to hear that, Harry. It wasn't about you," Remus apologized as they walked. The mousy-haired werewolf chose to walk through the dewy, knee-high grass so as to stay at Harry's side.

Harry snorted. "And you say _I'm_ a bad liar."

Remus scratched the back of his neck and looked sheepish. There was an awkward pause, as he seemed to search for words. "Is there…anything you want to tell me, Harry?"

Harry's stomach fluttered. "Well—yes, actually."

Remus looked surprised, but brightened at once. "I see. Well, you know I'm always here for you." Remus' tone was gentle, and it made Harry squirm.

"I appreciate that."

"Will you tell me what happened last month?"

_Brains dribbling out of a skull that was cracked like an egg—a severed hand in a dirty puddle—_

Harry stumbled and almost dropped his knapsack. "Nothing happened," he answered immediately, in a harsh voice that belied his words.

"Harry…"

"I have something I want to tell you, but not until we get home, all right?"

Remus sighed and nodded.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

On the boat, Bjorn served them all stiff cups of tea, as usual, and Remus sipped his appreciatively, though he still viewed the one-eyed captain with a good deal of distrust. Bjorn had apparently decided to take the wolf's scrutiny as a compliment, and the old bear practically preened under the wolf's watchful eye. Harry ignored them both, choosing to immerse himself in the _Prophet _instead, which Bjorn had thoughtfully left out for him.

_**SIRIUS BLACK DIES AT AZKABAN**_

_by Rita Skeeter_

_A representative of Azkaban reports that Sirius Orion Black perished of natural causes in his cell at Azkaban early on February 2. After consultation with his next of kin, Black's remains were interred at Azkaban. No ceremony will be held._

_Those fortunate citizens of wizarding Britain who survived the perilous years of You-Know-Who's reign of terror will recall that Sirius Black was one of the You-Know-Who's most vile henchmen._

"_Chaos, just sheer chaos… smoke everywhere, people crying and screaming, and the blood…" remembers Mitchell Pierce with a shudder. Pierce was working on the fifth floor of the Ministry during the explosion of the fourth floor, which was masterminded by Black. He rushed to the scene in the aftermath. "Then we saw him through the smoke, grinning like a demon. The man was pure evil."_

"_I, for one, will sleep better at night, knowing that there is one less Death Eater in the world," said Narcissa Black Malfoy, cousin of Sirius Black and wife of renowned philanthropist Lucius Malfoy. When asked what Sirius Black was like as a child, she recalled, "He was always getting into trouble. As soon as he knew what the rules were, he had to break them. It was a compulsion for him. In retrospect, I think I always knew he was a bit unbalanced, but you just don't think that someone you know could turn out to be such a monster."_

_Readers may recall that after the passing of Orion Black in 1979, Sirius Black became the heir-in-waiting to the Black fortune, which is currently controlled by octogenarian Arcturus Black. According to Ministry officials, the Black holdings include approximately 75 million galleons in liquidity, as well as various investments and property in Britain, Ireland, and France. The Black family fortune will now pass to newly designated heir-in-waiting Lucretia Black Prewett upon her father Arcturus Black's passing._

"What are you reading?" Remus asked, appearing behind Harry.

Harry closed the paper with a snap, but not quickly enough. Remus snatched the paper from Harry's hand, and turned back to the article. The blood drained from his face, and he set the paper down on the hold's small table with a shaking hand.

"Think I'll get some air," the ashen-faced man said, and exited the hold with a stiff posture.

Bjorn and Harry exchanged significant looks. Bjorn's was smirking, while Harry's was grim.

Harry patted his shirt pocket. "Thanks again for the jerky."

Bjorn chuckled, his scar going white and taut around his grin.

On the deck, Harry navigated his way across the rocking planks to the stern, where Remus was staring into the wake morosely. He glanced at Harry with red-rimmed, watery eyes, then looked away. Harry hugged his uncle and patted the man's back somewhat uncertainly.

"You were right," Remus said.

"About what?"

"I should have gone to see him. At least once."

"I'm sure he understood."

"He did it for me, you know. I could never forgive him for that."

"Yeah. I figured."

Remus sighed. "I'm sorry; I shouldn't unburden myself on you, Harry."

"It's fine," Harry replied quickly. "You always listen to me."

Remus smiled wanly, but it faded quickly. "It's not like anything has really changed, after all…"

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Harry found himself that evening in the strange position of both wanting to spill everything as soon as possible, and wanting to keep delaying the inevitable. In the end, he put off the moment until after dinner, when Remus had lit a merry fire in the hearth and drawn the curtains. They met in the living room, after Harry had downed another calming potion in the bathroom, and Harry rubbed his knees nervously, unsure how to start.

"Well?" Remus asked. "What did you want to talk to me about?"

Harry opened his mouth, but the proper words remained just out of reach. He closed his mouth and swallowed. "Here," he blurted, and thrust a potion flask at Remus.

"What's this?" Remus asked, turning the flask up to display the symbols etched on the base: three zeds, a skull, and a sun.

"Antidote for the Draught of Living Death."

Remus looked at Harry sharply. "Where did you get this?" he asked warily. Harry plucked at his trousers and remained silent. "Harry?"

"I bought it."

"Where?"

"It doesn't matter."

"What's it for?"

Harry chuckled awkwardly. "Well, I didn't get you a very good Yule present, so…"

"Not at all," Remus protested, glancing at the window where he had hung the cleverly carved mother-of-pearl wolf so that it could catch the light.

"So I thought I'd get you something else. Only I don't really know whether you want it or not, and I couldn't exactly ask."

Harry withdrew the canvas space-expanding sack from his shirt pocket and stood on the wide expanse of Oriental rug between the sofa and the Omnivision.

"Why couldn't you ask me?" Remus asked suspiciously. "Harry, does this have to do with what happened last month?"

The gruesome images flashed before Harry's eyes again. The calming potion prevented his hands from shaking, but his heart tripped and stumbled even so.

"Nothing happened," Harry answered, and stifled another hysterical giggle. "Erm, well, I guess this can be an early birthday present, or something, even though…oh, hell, just…_here_."

Harry held the sack upside down and emptied the comatose convict out onto the rug. Sirius landed in a sprawl of spidery limbs, and quite a bit of dirt fell out after him, as well as a piece of reindeer jerky that must have stuck to the canvas. Harry surreptitiously vanished that. Remus would murder Bjorn, or maim him at the very least, if he ever suspected the sea-captain's complicity.

Remus' eyes nearly bugged out of his head. It would have been quite funny if it weren't so terrifying. "What the—Harry, get away from him!" The man leapt across the room and dragged Harry behind him. One hand dug frantically in his pockets for a wand that he couldn't find.

Harry skipped away from Remus, putting the sofa between them. "Don't worry, he's totally knocked out. That's what the potion's for," Harry explained, cowering slightly under Remus' blazing look.

"What—how—who—_explain!_"

Harry looked puzzled, then realized that Sirius' matted hair was obscuring his face. "Look," he said softly, moving Sirius' hair aside with a wave of his coral-pierced hand.

Remus froze, not even breathing for several heartbeats. He sank to his knees and touched Sirius' cheek tentatively. Then he shook his head, and backed away, his eyes wild with fury and terror.

"Harry," Remus groaned, "what have you _done_?"

Harry bit his lip as another entirely inappropriate giggle tried to escape. "Erm…happy early birthday?"

Remus sputtered incoherently for a moment. Then he snapped, "_Accio Wand!_"

The wand in question hopped out of Harry's pocket and zipped across the room, but Harry retrieved it mid-flight with a grasping motion. Remus recoiled as though Harry had slapped him in the face.

"You've been practicing magic?" the werewolf demanded. His eyes flashed with sudden understanding. "With that bloody coral! You lied to me, Harry."

Remus' disappointed and accusing tone was so familiar to Harry from a lifetime of getting into trouble and being disciplined by his uncle that he felt an instinctive urge to apologize meekly. He resisted this, however.

"I could hardly get him out without magic, now could I?" Harry asked, trying to keep his tone even. "And I didn't lie, I just didn't tell you. Anyway, don't worry, I'm being careful with it."

"Careful!" Remus repeated hysterically. "Careful! You just helped a mass murderer fake his death and escape from prison!"

"To be fair," Harry answered, circling away around the sofa as Remus began to edge toward him, "I didn't _help_ him. It was all me. All he had to do was take the potion, and I practically had to stuff it down his throat even so."

"Harry," Remus cried, "the man is a psychomage! He can get inside your head, plant ideas, make you think they're yours!"

Harry huffed. "I'm quite good at Occlumency, as you very well know. And I know all about his psychomagy, since I'm the one who got his memories back for him."

"Memories?" Remus stopped circling the sofa for a moment.

Harry nodded. "He displaced his memories of you, so that Voldemort and the Ministry wouldn't find out about you. Only, once he was caught, he couldn't get them back. He didn't know you from a school-boy fling for ten years." Harry looked away and added uncertainly, "I think he tried to kill himself after he got them back."

Remus wavered for a moment, but he brushed off whatever doubts he had quickly. "Harry, the man is a Death Eater. Any one of them would kill you in a second, for revenge or glory—or just the sheer fun of it."

Harry rolled his eyes. "He doesn't even know who I am. Look, just give him a chance. We can hide him here until you make up your mind what you want to do with him. If you insist that he still needs to be punished, I'm sure we can work something out."

Remus glared. "_We_ will not be doing anything, aside from discussing _your_ punishment. This isn't in your hands any longer, Harry."

Harry raised one eyebrow and waggled Remus' wand in mid-air at the man. "Seeing as all the wands _do_ seem to be in my hands, I'd have to disagree," he answered impertinently.

Remus looked ready to spit nails. "Yes, we'll be discussing_ that_, too."

Harry steeled himself and narrowed his eyes. "I'm not going to make you take a Vow, because you're my uncle, and I trust you, but if you think I'm giving this back before I'm convinced you're not going to turn him in, you can just keep thinking. I went to quite a bit of trouble getting him out in the first place."

Remus growled at Harry, a little of the wolf showing behind his eyes, but after a moment, his gaze was drawn back to the pitiful specimen of man sprawled on his oriental rug.

"Do you know what the dementors do to them?" Harry asked in a serious tone. "They siphon off their souls, a little at a time. They go mad, lose their minds, their memories, their humanity. In the end, they're all Kissed; the only question is how long it takes. And if that wasn't enough, the guards kept him in conditions that would have killed him, if it weren't for magic that prevented him dying of exposure or taking his own life. If you want him to go back to Azkaban, you should just kill him instead. It would be more merciful."

"He doesn't deserve mercy," Remus spat, but he looked weary suddenly, as though he had aged ten years in ten minutes. He dropped to the sofa and held his head in his hands, thinking. "I can't turn him in," the man grudgingly admitted. "There would be too many questions. And I'm afraid your father would bear the brunt of the blame. Did you account for that in your little scheme?"

Harry looked away guiltily. He hadn't.

"But he's still a Death Eater. I can't set him free," Remus continued, "and I can't watch him day and night, either. Do you even comprehend the position you've put me in?" He glared at Harry reproachfully.

Harry bit his lip. "Get him to make a Vow that he won't do anything you wouldn't approve of."

Remus nodded, slowly. "I suppose you have plenty of experience negotiating Vows with Death Eaters," he accused bitterly.

"Some," Harry allowed.

"How did you get into the prison?"

"I'd rather not say," Harry evaded. Remus would try to prevent him going back, that was certain.

"Give me my wand, Harry."

"Not until you promise not to tell my dad."

"The hell I will. He needs to know what you're doing, for his own protection if nothing else."

"He doesn't _want_ to know," Harry answered carefully, perching on the arm of the sofa. "He's still not in a good way. Azkaban has taken a lot out of him."

"That's always your excuse, isn't it?" Remus demanded bitterly. "You know, for all the complaining you do about his shoddy parenting, you certainly do seem invested in letting it continue. You two bloody deserve each other."

Harry flushed with shame, but held his ground.

Remus sighed heavily and scrubbed his hands over his face. "Sorry. I didn't mean that, Harry."

"It's fine," Harry replied flatly. "It's true, anyway. But just think what would happen if he was ever involved in another incident like the last one. If he gets questioned under Veritaserum by Aurors, do you really want _this_ coming out?"

Remus sighed, and his shoulders slumped. After a moment, he gave in. "Fine. I won't tell him."

Harry smiled tightly in triumph, and he tossed Remus' wand to him. "Well? You have the potion. Just pour it in his mouth. Or we could clean him up first."

Remus clutched his wand determinedly. "For the last time, Harry, there _is_ no _we_. You're grounded until I say otherwise. Now go to your room!"

Harry went. Just before he closed the door, however, Remus called out to him again with a strange expression on his face.

"Harry. Why does he smell like he's been marinated?"

This time Harry couldn't quite manage to keep his hysterical laughter from bubbling over.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Sirius woke surrounded by warmth, floating on a cloud. He sat upright with a great slosh of water, taking in his surroundings with the urgency of a wanted man. For a long moment, he simply stared at his old lover, drinking in that face that had haunted his dreams, with all its new and old scars, the delicate signs of aging, the hardened expression that looked so alien on his gentle wolf. The luminous amber eyes were the same, and the petal-soft lips. Sirius was overwhelmed with the urge to touch them, but Remus' expression forbade it.

"Well? Aren't you going to ask if you're dreaming or something?" Remus asked. His voice was a cocktail of bitterness and anger with a twist of sarcasm.

Sirius tried to speak, but managed only a fit of violent coughing. When his body had ceased its racking convulsions, he sank back into the water, exhausted, and murmured with a rasp, "Since you haven't tried to stab me yet, this couldn't be one of mine."

"Give it time," Remus replied, without irony.

"As long as it's you, it's fine," Sirius answered earnestly. He felt dizzy and weak, but still better than he had in years.

"Sit forward. I'm almost done."

Sirius complied, hunching over his knobby knees, conscious for the first time in years of how repulsive he must look. His hair had already been regrown, it seemed, and now Remus poured hair potion onto it, massaging the sudsy solution into his scalp. Sirius could have died happy in that moment.

"How did you get your hooks into my godson?" Remus asked coldly as he worked. He had always been fiercely loyal to his loved ones, and being on the other side of that felt like being chased from his own warm home into a bitter winter night. It seemed to Sirius that his heart no longer had any defences; it was a helpless lump of raw meat, pried from its shell.

"I think it's the other way around," Sirius answered honestly. "That boy gets up to quite a bit of mischief. Just like his father—adopted father, I should say."

Remus' fingers froze, digging into Sirius' scalp like claws. "You legilimised him?" he accused peremptorily.

"Didn't have to," Sirius responded as evenly as he could. He would happily have begged forgiveness for any sin, real or imagined, that Remus wanted to accuse him of, if he thought it would have helped, but he knew his old friend better than that, no matter how many years stood between them. "He had to be one of the guards' kids, and he looks so much like Lily. And you know as well as I do that those two couldn't have children."

Remus' fingers relaxed. He had always responded best to calm logic. A wand-tip touched Sirius' head, and warm water began to cascade over him.

"Don't think I'm doing this for your sake," Remus explained in the wake of a contented sigh from his prisoner. "I just don't want you dirtying the bedding."

Sirius smiled to himself. It would never occur to Remus that he didn't need to give an unwelcome visitor a bed.

Eventually, Remus vanished the cloudy water from the bath and helped Sirius to stand. The animagus towelled himself off with some difficulty; he was still dizzy. Remus spelled him into a set of pyjamas made from red flannel printed with small dogs chasing balls in circles.

"I didn't ask him to break me out," Sirius told Remus, as the werewolf helped him into a bed and pulled the covers up to his chest, "but I'm not sorry. It would have been worth it to see you one last time, even if you hit me with the Killing Curse the next second."

"I'm not like you, Sirius," Remus answered frostily, dimming the lights and lingering by the side of the bed. "I don't kill people."

"Not even to save someone you love?"

Remus looked at Sirius for a long, tense moment. "You're going to make me a Vow. Vow that you'll never lie to me, never hide anything I would want to know, and never do anything I wouldn't approve of."

Sirius' heart fluttered with hope, sending a wave of pain and malaise throughout his body. "Does this mean you're not going to turn me in?"

"I can do a lot worse to you than those prison guards," Remus warned.

Sirius smiled indulgently and reached for Remus' hand, but it was snatched away before he could touch it.

"Don't. That's over now," Remus snapped.

Sirius nodded sadly.

"I can't just…" Remus continued, his voice choked with emotion.

"I understand. I do."

Remus went to the door. "You…you weren't who I thought you were. The person I loved…wouldn't have done what you did."

"Remus," Sirius called. Remus turned, glancing back. "I still love you. I always have."

Remus turned away, hiding his face.


	13. The Grim Old Place

o─-o─-o─-─-─-─ **WITHOUT THORN THE ROSE** ─-─-─-─o-─o-─o

Summary: When Lily died she left a broken James to raise a stranger's son. When a drunken act of violence sees James demoted to prison guard, Harry is inducted into the mysteries of Azkaban, and begins to solve the mysteries of his own existence, as well. SLASH. AH/AU. Some RL/SB, RL/JP, future LV/HP in sequels.

Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling.

Warnings: SLASH. If you squint.

Notes: Thank you all so much for all the reviews, favs, and follows. They really motivate me. I have been working about four hours a day on my writing now that I'm out of school for the summer, so I've just finished up the second draft for this story and I'm getting back to working on the sequel, of which I have about 2/3 of the first draft done. There are a ton of pins on my Pinterest for this chapter, so go check that out. *prods with fork*

Here's something that happened to me this week – feel free to skip to the story, but I just have to share.

Me: "Hey mom, you should post your novel on a website or something so you can get feedback. It's super easy! Here, lemma show ya some sites…"

(30 min later)

My mom: "So, the epic masterpiece you've been whining about for months is a Harry Potter fanfiction, huh?"

Me: "How the fuck did THIS happen?!"

Mom: "Remember when I had to hide those books from you, because you were reading them too much?"

Me: "Yup. That's when I started reading fanfiction. Hahaha! Ha…ha…" *facepalm*

Mom: "So, let's just see if I can find your story then."

Me: "Pish! There are 500,000 HP fanfics! You'll never catch me."

Mom: "Uh huh. 'Cause you said you just posted to it an hour ago, you told me the main characters and the genres, and I totally know your style."

Me: *remembers that hour long argument we once had about whether 'Without Thorn the Rose' was an awesome title for a story or a shitty one* *remembers that RL/JP lemon she wrote* "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" *throws self on ipad*

I guess what I'm trying to say is…enjoy the chapter?

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

o─-─-─-─-─ 13. THE GRIM OLD PLACE ─-─-─-─-─o

Harry got his first taste of Sirius' Vow—to do nothing Remus would not approve of—at breakfast the next morning, when the Death Eater ripped into his food with his bare hands. After Remus had revived him, Sirius apologized and tried again with a knife and fork.

"Good thing you didn't make the forfeit his life," Harry observed, around bites of his own meal. He, too, was eating readily, now that his ordeal was over.

"That's one thing the article got right," Remus agreed, eyeing Sirius coolly. "He is a compulsive rule breaker."

"Article?" Sirius asked, looking up.

"You _are_ rather infamous, you know," Harry pointed out. He fished the paper in question from the stack of old _Prophets_ on the kitchen counter.

Sirius glanced over the article, frowning. "Lucretia Prewett," he muttered, glancing at Harry. "That's your great-grandmother." Harry nodded. "So you'll inherit the fortune someday."

Harry shrugged. "If I ever tell anyone who my mother really was."

"Speaking of Black properties…" Remus began, giving Harry a look almost as chilly as the one he had given Sirius. "Since I seem to have been saddled with the care and keeping of an escaped convict, we can't stay here much longer. I've decided to move into the Black townhouse in London. With Sirius, of course."

"Why?" Harry asked, startled.

"The wards here aren't strong enough," Remus explained. "And I can't afford to get more—or to be seen getting more."

Harry was confused. "But my Dad installed all kinds of things, for when I visit."

"Exactly. For when you visit. Those spells aren't active when you're not here."

"Oh. But I thought all the Black properties belonged to Arcturus?"

"Not all of them," Sirius replied, slathering a bit of toast with marmalade. "Just the manors and castles."

"Oh," Harry replied dryly, thinking of the sardine can that he and James lived in on Azkaban. "Just those. _Well_, then."

"The townhouse isn't much, but I think it will be adequate," Sirius continued, oblivious, "and I'm the only one with access to it. If my mother's barmy house elves haven't burned it down, that is."

"Elves, plural," Harry said flatly, exchanging looks with Remus, whose cold affect softened to wry sympathy for a moment.

"So we'll be going over there today to get settled in, while you have your play date," Remus put in.

Harry brightened. "Luna?"

"And Neville, yes."

Harry beamed sunnily. For once, all was well in his world.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Just after the mantle clock had dinged two, a knock came at the front door. Remus and Sirius were in London, surveying the townhouse, so Harry answered the door himself.

"Hello, Mrs Longbottom, Luna, Neville," Harry greeted the visitors politely.

"Yes, quite," Augusta Longbottom answered coolly, glaring down her nose at Harry. "Well, have a good time."

Harry, irritated, ushered Mrs Longbottom to the floo, and she went on her way. He returned to the porch then, where Neville and Luna were rocking in the swinging seat.

"Oh, look, a wrackspurt," Luna said dreamily, pointing to an empty spot of air next to Harry. He squinted at the empty space, then shot an alarmed look at Neville, who hastily got up and pulled Harry aside.

"Er—is she quite all right?" Harry asked in a hushed tone.

"She's been like that ever since she had to go to Mungo's," Neville answered mournfully, watching Luna, who was now waggling her fingers at the bit of empty space. "I think her mind was injured. She's fine most of the time, though. Just, every now and then strange things pop out. Her Sight, you know…"

Harry swallowed hard. Guilt welled up in him as he remembered how selfishly he had pushed Luna to view something that he knew would be horrible.

"Luna, I'm so—_so_ sorry," he stammered. He put his hand on the girl's shoulder and she turned her large silver eyes on him. They were still beautiful, but oddly protuberant now, as though her head were too full. "I'm really sorry this happened."

She cocked her head at him. "You're one, too," she mused.

"Er…" Harry backed up a step. The light in those eyes was unsettling. Luna followed, pushing her face close to his and peering into his eyes as though she could see into the darkness of his skull. Harry didn't like to think what she might find there.

"You're a—a draugr¹. A draugr with a little nidhogg² nibbling on him," she told him with a giggle. "And you have a pet Grim. Oh! I want to play with him!"

Harry bit back a gasp. Luna smiled fondly at him and kissed him on the cheek before running off into the yard.

"You haven't really got a Grim, have you?" Neville asked uneasily. He had been doing all right in Harry's presence so far, but he had started to turn a bit green at the thought of a Grim.

"Of course not," Harry answered, a bit too forcefully. Sirius' animagus form could easily be mistaken for one, however. Had Luna Seen Sirius? What had she been peering at in Harry's eyes? "Let's—let's just go play."

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

¹ A draugr is an undead creature from Norse myth. They are animated corpses who live in graves and exist to guard treasure, wreak havoc, or get revenge. They have many magical abilities, including superhuman strength, increasing their size and weight, rising from the grave as wisps of smoke and swimming through rock, driving people and animals mad, shape-shifting, controlling weather, seeing the future, entering dreams, spreading disease, immunity to weapons, and bringing darkness during daylight.

² In Norse mythology, _Níðhöggr_ (Malice Striker, usually anglicised as Nidhogg) is a serpent or dragon located in Niflheim, the realm of ice and cold that includes Hell, who gnaws one of the three roots of the world tree, Yggdrasil. It is sometimes believed that the root is trapping the beast from the world.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Later, Remus returned with Sirius to bring Harry to London. Harry was impressed with their new accommodations. The townhouse was a five-story Georgian, of the same red brick as the two neighbouring houses to which it was attached. Harry thought it a bit odd that the hoity-toity Blacks would consent to share walls with common Muggles, but Sirius explained that wizards had owned the whole street in the 18th century, when the house was built. The lingering presence of the Blacks explained the street name nicely, Harry thought.

It was clear that no one had been keeping up with repairs, as the shingles were in a deplorable state, several panes of glass were broken, and browning ivy covered much of the façade. The inside of the house was no better. Once past the front door with its tarnished silver serpent knocker, they entered the front hall. Harry could see that it had once been grand. Marble steps curved up in a graceful arabesque, and above them, a domed skylight supported an ornate crystal chandelier. But the skylight was grimy, and the chandelier covered with cobwebs; the wallpaper was peeling, and the carpet was worn down and filthy.

The state of neglect was not the only foreboding detail, however. Many of the doorknobs and lights were shaped like serpents, dragons, gargoyles, and other dangerous creatures. A ghastly umbrella stand made of a hollowed-out troll's foot stood next to the door, and mounted on the wall of the staircase were the preserved heads of several house elves. A scattering of bright rectangles on the discoloured wallpaper indicated where the numerous paintings had been removed, leaving the walls empty.

The only part of the house that Remus and Sirius had cleaned thoroughly was the kitchen, so they proceeded there. Sirius rummaged in the pantry while Remus settled onto a bench at the long, rough-hewn wooden table and Harry surveyed the surroundings for

It was difficult to determine where one house ended and the next began.

"Are there any creatures here?" he asked Remus.

"Like as not, the whole place is infested with gods only know what," Sirius said, returning from the pantry with a dusty bottle of fire whiskey and a tumbler. He poured himself a couple of fingers as Remus observed with pinched lips. As soon as the Death Eater lifted the tumbler to his mouth, however, he went limp and keeled over on the table.

Remus sighed. "That's the fourth time today."

Harry snorted. "Gods, Uncle Remus, you can't even let him have a drink?"

"He's bad enough sober," Remus replied, pouring the whiskey out in the sink.

Sirius came to a moment later, rubbing a lump on his forehead. He did not complain, however, which Harry thought wise; the animagus simply continued with his train of thought.

"The house-elves are gone, so we'll have to clean it ourselves until I can get some new ones," Sirius finished.

"I'm not sure Uncle Remus would approve of that," Harry answered with some amusement.

"What? The cleaning or the house-elves?"

"The house-elves," Remus supplied, returning from the pantry with a tin of tea. "I'm afraid they have a natural enmity for werewolves, and they can be rather territorial. They refused to change my sheets or do my laundry at Hogwarts."

Sirius looked startled. "You never said a word."

"You would have gone after them for it," Remus explained wearily.

"Too right I would," Sirius replied darkly. "Nasty little ankle-biters, always creeping around spying."

"You could stand to be a bit more charitable to magical beings," Remus remarked frostily, "seeing as you claim to be in love with one."

Sirius held his peace. Harry looked back and forth between the two men. Things were going as well as could be expected, he thought; neither of them sported any visible wounds, at any rate. And despite Remus' steadfastly cold façade, Harry thought his uncle seemed more alive than he had in quite some time. There was a suppressed energy seething just under the wolf's skin. Harry only hoped that nothing would be broken beyond repair when the dam burst. After that, perhaps, they could both start healing.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Sirius and Remus had pronounced the ground floors and first floor clear of any danger, and so they left Harry to work there, while they moved on to the second floor. Remus foisted an armful of cleaning potions and brushes onto Harry, and the dark-haired boy was content to let the man think what he would. He waited until Remus was out of sight before returning the cleaning supplies to the cupboard, and then set about repairing and cleaning with his magic. He dispatched Lady on cleaning duty, too, to eradicate whatever rats might be lurking behind holes in the baseboards. For once, Harry's pernickety familiar did not protest being given orders.

Harry took his time, starting at the bottom and working his way up. He made a point to open every door and peer into each nook and cranny, constructing a mental map of the house. The lower ground floor contained the cramped servants' quarters, the cavernous kitchen with its walk-in fireplace oven and pantry attached, several utilities cupboards, and three locked vaults etched with runes. The ground floor contained the once grand entryway, a dank cloakroom complete with several mouldering cloaks and furs, and two studies with locked desks. The first floor comprised a vast drawing room and equally impressive dining room with a table that could easily seat twenty. Harry found himself wondering if Sirius' parents had eaten at opposite ends from each other.

The drawing room was majestic, with its gigantic windows curtained in dusky gold, stretching floor to ceiling, and the massive family tree tapestry, woven in silk and embroidered with thread of silver, now tarnished black. Harry traced the branch with his grandmother's name. Below Electra, however, only '1 daughter' was listed, with no name and no father indicated. The descendants of female Blacks were always omitted from the tree, Harry realized upon further inspection, unless they were designated heirs. Sirius' branch, with its lingering scorch marks not completely concealed by careful patching, told a story of its own.

The rest of the room was no less grand. There were two gold and crystal chandeliers, and a grand piano with real ivory keys. The sofas and chairs were upholstered with blood red velvet and had clawed ebony feet. The tables were of the same ebony, supported by ornately carved and gilded serpents and dragons. Sirius had warned him only to dust the antiques, for fear they would be damaged, and Harry gladly did so.

The cleaning went smoothly, for the most part, but the entryway proved to be a lost cause. First, he managed to blast the troll's foot umbrella stand through a wall with a particularly forceful cleaning spell, and then he shredded the carpet beyond all repair. This turned out to be a boon, however, as the carpet revealed a beautiful and intricate stone mosaic in cobalt and turquoise. After that, Harry went on a shredding spree, uncovering bright, colourful wallpaper and floors everywhere he turned. Soon he had restored the first three stories to an era that pre-dated the Blacks' obsession with gothic décor. The furniture no longer matched, but that was well worth bringing some colour into the gloomy abode.

After a few hours, when everything but the finicky antiques had been cleaned and polished, Harry decided to explore the rest of the house. The second and third floors were given over to bedrooms, bathrooms, and dressing rooms. The master bedroom was the only one with any sign of occupation. Out of the master dressing room spilled robes, gowns, hats, and shoes that even Harry knew were drastically out of fashion. A soul belonging to some minor magical creature was lurking behind a rack of outrageous hats covered with feathers and ribbons. Harry approached cautiously, trying to read the pattern of its swirling colours, but as he stepped nearer, the soul quivered and churned rapidly in a new configuration.

"Come out of there," Harry called softly but firmly. "I won't hurt you…"

Harry's eyes nearly bugged out of his skull when Luna Lovegood crawled out from under the rack of hats.

"Help me, Harry," she cried. Tears and snot ran down her face, which was as haggard and drawn as an inmate of Azkaban. "It hurts!" she shouted, clutching her skull. Her eyes bulged grotesquely. "Why did you do this to me? Why did you make me _look_!"

Harry shook his head vigorously, backing into a rack of taffeta and chiffon evening gowns. He clutched at the fabric to keep himself from stumbling, but the dresses slithered from the racks and followed him to his knees.

_Crack_.

Luna Lovegood became James Potter. His face was flushed and twisted as it was when he'd tied on a few too many. Harry recoiled in disgust and—something deeper—what was it—

"You!" James roared, flinging an empty bottle of Ogden's at Harry's head. Harry dodged it just in time. "I wish Voldemort had killed you instead! Then I could have a real life instead of living in this miserable shithole, slaving away the best years of my life for an ungrateful little _snake _that isn't even mine!"

Harry knew it wasn't real. He'd been confused by Luna's face, but he knew what this was, now. The only thing he didn't understand was why he wasn't seeing his fears. A boggart was supposed to assume the form of his greatest fear. So why did Harry feel only this dull, throbbing ache in his chest?

_Crack._

It was Remus, now, staring down at Harry in cold disdain. "My life isn't a toy for you to play with," he told Harry. "I was happy with my memories. But now, because of you—I have to do _this._"

Sirius stepped up from behind Remus, and gazed mournfully into his former lover's eyes as Remus lifted his wand to point at Sirius' heart. Sirius did not move to defend himself as Remus spoke the words.

"_Avada Kedavra._"

Harry cried out in shock and horror. He saw a flash of green before he squeezed his eyes shut.

In the darkness behind his eyes, the stripe of green rippled and undulated, welcoming him as a mother to her long-lost son. The familiar waves rocked him gently, while the pressure squeezed him in a comforting embrace. And at the very edge of his hearing, he could just make out whispers, laughter, birdsong, the chiming of bells. Distantly Harry felt his body go limp, and his tears cease falling. He drew a deep breath, savouring the scent of rain-soaked earth, and opened his eyes.

Nothing. Only a dead woman's wardrobe. Harry scanned in all directions as far as his soul-sight could see, but either the boggart had fled or it had been destroyed by Harry's lack of fear. Yet rather than triumph, Harry felt bitter failure as he staggered to his feet and fled the dressing room. _Laughter_, he reminded himself harshly. _I should have been able to laugh._ Yet what was there to laugh at? There was no scenario he could imagine that would make Luna's illness, James' abuse, Remus' hatred, or Sirius' death funny.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Sirius discovered Harry, later, when the boy had recovered enough to start rummaging through the Black family's private belongings and filching a thing or two. Harry's instinct was to placate the adult with protestations of innocence, but, to his surprise, Sirius simply joined in the fun.

"Here, try this one," Sirius said with a quicksilver grin, handing a black, skull-shaped ring to Harry. The boy slipped it on, and the ring adjusted itself to his slim, child-sized finger. "It looks good on you."

Harry smiled a little shyly. Away from the influence of dementors, Sirius seemed less depressed. He was far from recovered, of course, but the spark of life had returned to his eyes. Harry was used to talking to an imprisoned shade of a man, however, and it was somewhat startling to be confronted with an energetic and confident Sirius.

"Reg was always trying to be cool," Sirius explained, rummaging through his brother's small jewellery box and coming up with a silver ouroboros pendant on a heavy chain. "Here."

Harry slipped the pendant on, obligingly. "Was he trying to live up to your image, do you think?"

Sirius glanced at Harry, startled. "You _are_ a quick one, aren't you?" He shrugged. "I certainly thought so. I thought I was really something, back then. Reg practiced liked mad to get onto his house team, second year, and I swear he tried to murder me every time we played each other. Then, in fourth year, he started carrying a guitar around and making the most wretched noises. One time, he managed to get a gig with some of his mates, and James and I showed up with a bunch of rotten fruit to lob at him." He chuckled. "I wasn't a very good older brother."

Harry toyed with the pendant, thoughtful. "Does he still live in Britain?"

"I don't know. He came to see me at Azkaban once, the first year I was there. He was wearing the most ridiculous muggle disguise. Said he was going into hiding, and if I ever wanted to get in touch with him again, I could go choke on a turnip." Sirius laughed again, but his eyes retained a hint of melancholy. "Good bloke, Reg."

"He was a Death Eater, too, wasn't he?"

Sirius sighed. "Yeah. Our parents were pressuring us, and all his mates were joining up. He never had much spine, did Reg."

"Did you ever fight together?"

"On the same side, you mean? Gods, no. The Dark Lord never trusted me any further than he could spit. Had me under house-arrest almost the entire time I was joined up. Convinced I was a double agent. He used to legilimise me at regular intervals." Sirius shuddered. "That man had no finesse, I tell you. I could have taught him a thing or two, but he thought he knew everything already. That was his downfall, in the end."

"What do you mean?"

Sirius shrugged. "Well, he thought muggleborns were worthless, but it was a muggleborn witch who did him in, wasn't it?"

Harry swallowed, remembering green light and the chiming of bells. "Yeah," he agreed quietly. Privately, however, he wasn't so sure anymore what had transpired on that fateful night.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Remus looked around the library, trying to supress his natural inclination to be over-awed. The room took up the majority of the fourth floor, and the rows of dusty, glass-fronted bookshelves extended all the way to the rafters. Sirius pointed out the paintings silently, and Remus incinerated them one by one, after which he dispelled their Disillusionment charms.

"So? What was so important that I see?" Remus asked in an even tone.

"Over here," Sirius called, leading the way to a dark oak cabinet in one corner.

Glass-housed candelabra hung from the sloping ceilings, and each wick flared to life as Sirius passed under it. Remus' jaw tensed at this display of the wandless man's magic, still strong after all these years. He hadn't given Sirius his wand back. He wanted to trust Sirius' word, but if anyone could find a way around a Vow, it would be a Black. Yet he couldn't bring himself to ask Sirius to bind his powers entirely. To remove the man's magic would be tantamount to emasculating him, and, whether he liked to admit it or not, a part of Remus was still very much attached to Sirius' masculinity.

It was this part of himself that made Remus wary of being alone with his ex-lover. It was the same part of him that had wept inwardly with relief and joy when he realized that Sirius was still alive. How he wished that he could harden his heart to the man. It was as though he were caught helplessly in a dream, unable to wake—a dream that at any moment threatened to descend into nightmare.

"Here," Sirius called, opening the cabinet. A stout shelf at waist height held only a silver basin embossed with intricate runes and the images of two ravens¹. Below this were several smaller shelves, holding a multitude of flasks and vials, each containing misty silver strands of magic.

"What are all these?" Remus asked, curious despite his misgivings.

"Black family history," Sirius replied absently. "Mostly a lot of marriages and executions. Some of the old ones are fairly wild, though—probably gone funny from age. But never mind that. Can I borrow your wand?"

Remus tensed, gripping the slim length of wood tightly. "What for?"

"I Vowed not to keep anything from you that you would want to know," Sirius explained with a solemnity that Remus scarcely recognized. Azkaban had changed him.

Remus handed over his wand grudgingly, and Sirius put the tip to his forehead. In truth, Remus was not sure he wanted to see any of what Sirius might want to show him, but he trusted the Vow—for the moment.

"Do you want me to go in with you?" Sirius asked, after placing his memories in the pensieve.

Remus shook his head and took a deep breath, steeling himself.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

¹ In Norse mythology, Huginn (Old Norse "thought") and Muninn (Old Norse "memory" or "mind") are a pair of ravens that fly all over the world and bring information to the god Odin.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Remus surfaced from the sea of memories with a gasp, and fell to his knees, clutching the shelf and panting. It felt like he had been under for hours, and his head was still water-logged with a phantasmagoria of horror.

_Nude corpses, robbed of all dignity, heaped like a pile of spare doll parts in a corner—cages of children, who simply stared like zombies that had forgotten the sound of human speech—a man, chained to a dissection table, with his ribcage cut open and spread in two wings, whose eyes flickered open and begged for death—_

A hand touched Remus' shoulder, offering warmth and sympathy, and he snapped, shoving Sirius away violently. Ever since he had touched Sirius' face the night before, the deep waters of Remus' heart had been in turmoil. The calm tides of his inner life had been shaken from their normal pattern. His gently lapping waves had been pulled out to sea, gathering themselves in a dark, roiling undertow, and now, as inevitably as gravity, they were thundering back to shore, in a tidal wave of rage and bitterness. The wave was cresting, and Remus was swept forward along with it.

"No!" Remus' voice was ragged and frenzied. "Just—just _don't_."

The Black stumbled back, tripped over a chair, and landed on his arse, staring up at Remus with wide eyes. "Are you all right, Remus?" he asked in a tone of concern.

Remus shook his head. "What did you think—that I was going to forgive you, if I saw how bad it was? How dare you—how _dare _you try to justify yourself with that—that"—he couldn't find a word bad enough. "Just because you loved a werewolf once doesn't give you the right to declare yourself some kind of"—he gesticulated wildly—"some kind of bloody _crusader_. You can't fight fire with fiendfyre, you bloody fool!"

Sirius was frozen, silent.

"Do you even know what happened to all those werewolves you tried to rescue?" Remus' voice was growing hoarse. "You wanted me to watch your horror story—well, you can _damn_ well hear mine! Because I was there that day. Do you know why that employee who got away didn't turn you in?"

Sirius' eyes glinted with dark interest.

Remus nodded. "That's right. That's just the _beginning _of what you don't know. He was covering his arse. He went after those poor wretches that you abandoned in the Atrium—so that you could get back to your vengeance, I don't doubt—and he Imperiused them. They turned on the crowd and tore them apart." He smacked his own chest in emphasis. "I was there! I saw it all! The Aurors put them down like dogs, children and all."

Remus held a hand to his eyes, and the remembered smell of blood overwhelmed his nostrils. His wave of towering pathos had crashed, and was rushing out again, leaving him only with gut-wrenching grief that forced him to his knees.

"It makes me sick—_sick_—to think I played any part in it, even if it was only in your mind."

Remus looked up between his hands, which were splayed over his face, desperate for any hint of regret on Sirius' gaunt face. But the man merely gazed back at him impassively.

"Gods _damn _it, Sirius! Say _something_!" Remus cried. It felt as though he were throwing stones into a bottomless well.

Sirius closed his eyes. His voice was infuriatingly calm. "What do you want me to say?" He lifted his shoulders and dropped them. "I fucked up? Do you really think I don't know that? I had nothing else to think about for ten _years_, Remus. I can't cry over it any more. I ran out of tears a long time ago."

"At least tell me you regret it. At least tell me you're sorry," Remus pleaded.

Sirius was silent, and Remus looked imploringly at the man he'd once loved more than the whole world. Sirius simply gazed back flatly. His silence said all he needed to.

"You're _not_ sorry," Remus said wonderingly, his hands falling to his lap limply. "You'd do it again."

"I'd do it better," Sirius replied evenly, continuing to meet Remus' eyes steadily.

Remus felt something beneath him break away, and he was falling. Where was the boy he had known? The boy who had healed every scrape on Remus' wolf-ravaged body and shed tears over each one? The boy who had spirited away the mouse he'd been given to transfigure, and set it free? Had he always been nothing more than a chrysalis for this cold, hard creature?

"_Why_?" Remus whispered.

Sirius clasped his hands and stared at them pensively. "I know what you think I should have done. That I should have gotten evidence, shown it to the right people, spread the word. But that's because—forgive me, Remus—you have always been so terribly naïve about the true nature of our world."

Remus drew in a sharp breath, ready to protest, but Sirius continued.

"I suppose it's because your parents were muggleborn. Or perhaps you simply have an optimistic nature. You see the fear and hatred that wizard-kind have for werewolves and other creatures as something like the muggles' petty prejudices, which could be combatted with greater understanding and equality. But they _aren't_ like that. Wizards _do_ understand werewolves, and that's precisely why they fear them."

Remus looked away, hurt, and hated himself for still being so affected by such a small thing, after all the scorn he had suffered for what he was.

"They know that running in your veins is a wild magic that they can't comprehend and can't hope to match. Whatever guilt they might feel over your suffering at their hands is more than overcome by the relief of being reassured that your darkness can never touch them. This is what you—and Dumbledore, too, for that matter—always failed to comprehend. You won't win your rights by rolling over and showing your belly, because they can always see your teeth. The only way you can ever hope to gain a place for yourself in our world is to seize it from their grasp and defend it to the death. Thus it has ever been amongst wizards."

"Just because it's always been that way, doesn't mean it always has to be," Remus argued stubbornly. "The wizarding world is changing. There are more muggleborns than ever, and they have different ideas about what's right."

Sirius nodded. "It's changing, I grant you that. But those muggleborns? There are no more muggleborns than there ever have been. It's just that, a thousand years ago—even a hundred—their magic would have been considered too weak to bother training. But now, with fewer children being born to wizards every year, if the standards hadn't been dropped, Hogwarts wouldn't have enough students to remain open. Most muggleborns never do accidental magic before attending Hogwarts, and never achieve enough skill to gain any real influence in our society.

"It's the same everywhere you turn. The magic is going out of things. The great trees sicken, the sacred circles crumble, and wizards rely ever more on their wands, turning away from the old rituals and magics. The Dark Lord may have gotten a lot wrong—but at least he _saw_ what's happening. Dumbledore and the Ministry are too obsessed with gold and politics to even look around. They would still be arguing over laws even when there were no more wizards to follow them."

Remus wrapped his arms around his knees. "None of that justifies his atrocities," he answered quietly. "Voldemort and his Death Eaters—_you_—did more to destroy our world than the Ministry ever did."

Sirius sighed. "I know it. But just because the world's changing doesn't mean that it will ever welcome werewolves. If anything, it's getting worse for you. As the magical power that the average wizard has decreases, the amount of threat they perceive from dark creatures increases. You said I tried to fight fire with fiendfyre? You're right. Only, the way I see it, I was teaching them a lesson about what happens when you try to keep fire in a cage. I'm sorry I couldn't save any of their victims. But I don't regret cleansing the earth of those scum. Please don't ask me to."

Remus felt exhausted suddenly. It felt like forever that he had been fighting the same never-ending battle. "Maybe you're right," he murmured forlornly. "Maybe there is no place in this world for someone like me."

"That makes two of us," Sirius answered.

A hand touched his knee softly, and this time Remus allowed it. The fight had deserted him for the moment. Sirius drew his former lover into his arms, wrapping him tightly in a warm embrace. Remus did not return the gesture, but, for a long time, the werewolf simply soaked in that achingly familiar warmth and intoxicating scent, remembering days gone by.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

By the time Harry returned to Azkaban, Grimmauld Place was fit for habitation once more. He sensed that something had changed between Remus and Sirius, too. Remus was no longer giving Sirius the cold shoulder, but neither did he respond to the man's jokes and teasing. Sirius' melancholy seemed to have passed into Remus, and Harry was frustrated by his inability to cheer his uncle up or understand the source of his malaise.

Remus had Sirius to care for him, but not all of Harry's relatives were so fortunate. Back on the island, Harry's first act was to visit Rab. The man had been increasingly unstable of late, and Harry was worried for him. When he reached the top of the tower, however, Harry was greeted with an empty cell.

Rabastan Lestrange was missing.


	14. Sight Unseen

o─-o─-o─-─-─-─ **WITHOUT THORN THE ROSE** ─-─-─-─o-─o-─o

Summary: When Lily died she left a broken James to raise a stranger's son. When a drunken act of violence sees James demoted to prison guard, Harry is inducted into the mysteries of Azkaban, and begins to solve the mysteries of his own existence, as well. SLASH. AH/AU. Some RL/SB, RL/JP, future LV/HP in sequels.

Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling.

Warnings: SLASH. But not in this chapter.

Notes: Thanks so much for all the reviews, favs, and follows. After this one, there are only two more chapters (the climax and the denouement). The sequel still needs a ton of work, so if there's anything you desperately want to see in that, now's the time to let me know. Couple of new mythology pins for this chapter. Also, regarding last chapter, I just want to say that simply because I let Sirius have the last word doesn't necessarily mean I agree with him. The themes of that argument are definitely one of the major themes of my planned series, so we will see much more along those lines later. One last thing - my poll is now closed. Footnotes will stay as they have been, at the end of the section they appeared in. Thanks to everyone for confirming that as the best option. Oh, and if anyone knows why FFN keeps eating my spaces...I'd really like to know. :) Enjoy!

o─-─-─-─-─ 14. SIGHT UNSEEN ─-─-─-─-─o

Rabastan Lestrange was missing.

Harry stared into the empty stone cell for a long, puzzled moment, before descending down the stairs again and checking the charnel caves. There were no new bodies. He returned home and searched through the week's supply of the _Daily Prophet_, but there was no mention of the man. He hunted down Bjorn in the mess hall, but the one-eyed north-man had heard nothing. Harry returned to the twisted stair, and climbed slowly, trying to pick out Rab's unique pattern amongst the myriad of souls, but there were too many, packed too tightly together, and he couldn't identify anyone if the distance was too great.

James was no more helpful than Bjorn. Harry tried to prepare a nice meal that evening, so that James would feel agreeable, but the dark-haired boy was distracted and fretful, and he wound up with charred meat and underdone vegetables.

"Anything interesting happen at the prison lately?" Harry feigned mild interest as he forcefully mashed butter into his jacket potato.

James grunted around a mouthful of blackened chicken and shook his head. No matter how hearty the meals Harry prepared for him, the once-muscular man remained gaunt and pale, just like the other guards.

"I heard Sirius Black died," Harry added. James gave Harry with a dark look, but did not hurl any cutlery as he once had at the mention of their infamous cousin. "Do you lose many prisoners?"

"Some," James muttered, between mouthfuls of food.

"Anyone I would have heard of?" Harry tried, a touch of impatience creeping into his tone.

James shrugged mulishly.

"Are the Lestranges still alive?" Harry asked bluntly. "Rabastan and Rodolphus?"

James' stare was incredulous. "Gods, you are a morbid little fiend."

Harry forced his mouth into a smile, as if James had given him a compliment, but the remark stung him. "I'd like to do a blood test and see if Mum was really Rogerick Lestrange's daughter. If she was, I could petition the Ministry for the Lestrange inheritance."

James sighed impatiently. "Rodolphus at least is alive. You can ask the Warden yourself."

Harry sat up. "Rabastan's dead, then? How did it happen?"

James scowled. "What do you care?"

"He was my uncle," Harry answered tightly.

"He was a murderous bastard who should have been strung up from the nearest lamppost."

That was probably true, at least the first part, but Harry couldn't help but feel that he had abandoned the man to a sad and lonely death.

"He was my uncle," he repeated more quietly.

James raked his hand through his boyish curls. "Dead, in the infirmary, or in a different cell block. I don't know and I don't care."

There was a long silence as they both picked at the unappetizing meal. James looked as though he were mulling something over. Then he startled Harry with a question. It was rarely a good sign for Harry when the man got to thinking.

"Have you been reading the _Prophet_ lately?" James asked.

Harry glanced up. "Some. Why?"

"Did you read about the murders in Knockturn Alley, week before last?"

Harry's stomach fluttered, and he wished he could gulp down the calming potion in his pocket without his father noticing. "Yeah. What about them?"

James was quiet for a time as he considered his son coolly. The hair on the back of Harry's neck prickled, and for the first time in a long while, he felt a touch of fear of this man.

"One of my old co-workers came up here to question me about it," James continued finally. "Purely a matter of routine, of course. At first, they couldn't find any witnesses who had seen any of the criminals' faces, but they did manage to find one, eventually. An elderly witch. She said that after that after the fight, one of them came running out of an alleyway like the hounds of hell were after him. She caught his arm and lost her familiar for the trouble, but she managed to see his face."

Harry couldn't stop the blood draining from his face, as he remembered the old crone's beetle, smashed and oozing ichor. James was watching Harry like a hawk about to swoop, but Harry could not bring himself to look back.

"She said it was you."

Harry couldn't speak. He sat stock still on the sofa, cold sweat dripping down his back. James let the moment tick on and on until Harry wanted to shout his confession—anything just to break the tension.

"Of course, everyone thinks she's mad as a loon." James paused. "Do you want to know what I think?"

Harry's heart stuttered. He clenched his cutlery tightly to keep it from rattling against his plate.

"I'll take that as a no," James said, after a long, frozen silence. His voice dripped with poisonous contempt. With that, the man pushed his plate away, and took his leave of the room.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

It had never been an easy gap to bridge, but the rift between Harry and James was an insurmountable gulf from that day forth. Perhaps James had suspected Harry before confronting him, but suspicion and certainty were two different things. He never accused Harry outright, but he didn't have to. His certainty was as clear as his disgust. The elder Potter avoided eye contact, took his meals in the mess hall, and slept elsewhere as often as not.

Sometimes Harry wanted to scream at his father, '_It wasn't my fault! They killed me first!'_ But he never did. Sometimes he wanted to smash furniture again, like he had done at Remus'. Sometimes he wanted to beg for his father's forgiveness. Sometimes he wanted to remind the man that he wasn't the only Potter who got into lethal public brawls. Instead, he went down to the sea, and practiced his magic until his head throbbed and he couldn't produce so much as a spark. He slept on the sand, when he was too weary to climb back up the cliffs, and was wakened by the tide.

He avoided Bjorn. He avoided everyone. His teachers sent worried letters by owl, warning him that he would fail their classes if he continued to ignore his assignments, but he burned the letters and didn't reply. If they wrote to James, Harry never heard about it. At night, he often woke in a sweaty panic from nightmares in which accusing eyes watched while Death Eaters chased him, but now he silenced the room before sleeping. Silencing the sound of his nightmares allowed him to maintain the fantasy that his father would have comforted him, as he had once, if only he knew how much Harry needed him.

Magic was the only friend he sought. Every resource had been exhausted in the search for Rab. Even Pax and Bello had returned with their messages undelivered. Harry was left with no other option but to penetrate the heart of Azkaban, and for that, he would need formidable magic on his side. Harry's goals narrowed to a solitary focus. He wanted to disappear. It was easy to erase his scent, his smell, and his sound, but invisibility still eluded him.

Harry threw himself into the effort like a storm chaser into a hurricane. At times, even he wasn't sure why he was trying so hard. When his head spun and his nose bled from the effort, his conviction wavered. Perhaps he wanted to redeem himself by saving someone. Perhaps he just wanted to hide. When he thought on the matter too much, he felt an abyss of despair begin to open deep inside, and so he did his best not to think at all. It was surprisingly easy once he put his mind to it.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Weeks passed, and eventually it was time for Harry to return to the mainland. He escaped gladly, eager to put his father behind him, even if it did mean pausing the search for Rab. Harry received a cold welcome, however, when Remus failed to appear at their usual meeting point at the Shetlands harbour. Bjorn offered his own home for the night, but Harry dismissed the kind offer, adamant that he could easily get himself to Remus' place on his own. Bjorn accepted this easily, and Harry set off, knapsack in hand, for the public floo.

Despite clearly pronouncing the name of Remus' cottage, Harry soon found himself in a fireplace he had never seen before. Not only was it not Remus', it was not of the proper proportions for floo travel. It was a firecall-only model. When Harry tried to kneel down to crawl out, he found to his dismay that he was wedged into the chimney too tightly to escape. If this was a kidnapping attempt, it was succeeding.

"Hello?" a familiar voice called. "Who's there, please?" It was Luna.

Suddenly, Harry understood what had happened. Remus must have stopped floo service to his cottage, and the system had truncated Harry's trip at the nearest available floo, which happened to be the Lovegoods'.

"Er—hi," Harry called uncertainly, and sneezed. "Luna? Mr Lovegood? Sorry to intrude…" Harry wondered whether he could blast his way out and then repair the damage. He wasn't claustrophobic, but he really wanted to wipe his nose.

A head inserted itself into the fireplace and knocked into Harry's kneecap smartly.

"Ouch!" Harry exclaimed. "Watch it."

"It's Harry," Luna exclaimed excitedly to the unfamiliar soul next to hers.

"The draugr?" a deep, masculine voice asked.

Another head poked into the fireplace. Both heads twisted upward to look up at Harry as though he were a new species of butterfly on a pin.

"That's him," Luna replied dreamily. "Should we let him out of his barrow?"

"Up to you, my darling," Mr Lovegood replied gallantly. "He looks a bit crazed to me, with that dripping nose and red eye."

Harry repressed the urge to kick the man.

"Let him out," Luna decided.

Mr Lovegood mumbled an unfamiliar spell, and the bricks squashing Harry's shoulders together relaxed. He fell to his knees and crawled out of the fireplace.

"Oh, you do look a fright," Luna clucked. "Your poor eye."

"It's just a burst blood vessel," Harry explained, wiping his nose hurriedly on his handkerchief. He neglected to add that he had earned the injury from practicing his magic until his head felt ready to explode.

"The nidhogg's been at you again, hasn't he?" Luna asked.

"Er…" Harry said blankly. He looked to Mr Lovegood for help, but the man's stare was even dreamier than his daughter's. Harry wondered if madness was catching. "Sorry to just barge in, but I was trying to visit my uncle, only I think his floo's been cut off."

"Yes, he's sold the place," Luna explained. "Didn't you know?"

"No," Harry answered, irritated that Remus had not remembered him. If he were alone, Harry could have flooed to Grimmauld, or sent his patronus with a message, but the Lovegoods were watching him intently with bright and curious eyes.

Harry tried for an ingratiating smile. "Would it be all right if I borrowed an owl and just wrote him a note? It won't take long, and then I'll be out of your hair."

"I won't have it!" Mr Lovegood declared dramatically.

"No?" Harry asked weakly.

"No! You must stay for dinner. We insist, don't we, Luna?"

"Yes, daddy. I'll run and fry up the gulping plimpies we caught today."

Mr Lovegood saluted smartly to his daughter, who darted down the staircase that spiralled up the inside wall of the circular room.

"Erm, so…" Harry tried, scratching his head and wondering how to get out of the situation. "Did you say _gulping_ plimpy? I've only ever had the normal sort." _And they're bad enough_, he neglected to add. James had insisted on going fishing with Harry at Remus' pond once, and had made a dog's dinner of their catch.

"Oh," Mr Lovegood answered, his eyes lighting up with the air of a fanatic. "I did a cover story on them when they were discovered…let me see…"

Mr Lovegood began to rummage through a stack of newspapers that was being used as an end table. Looking around, Harry noticed that this was not the only questionable choice in décor. There was also bronze statue of a gnome on the mantle with a ludicrously noble look on its face, and several lighting fixtures whose sconces bore a striking resemblance to hollowed-out turnips.

"Er…lovely place you have…" Harry mentioned, for lack of anything better to say.

"AHA!" Mr Lovegood cried, making Harry jump in surprise. "Right here!" He beamed as he shook a yellowed _Quibbler_ in Harry's face. On the front page was a black and white sketch of a spherical fish with two legs.

"I…see. So…about that owl…" Harry tried.

"In the yard," Mr Lovegood informed him cheerily, and Harry escaped as fast as he could.

Harry found the aerie easily enough despite the waning light, but when he reached the owl, the creature decided that it did not like the looks of him. It hooted angrily and beat its wings in his face when he tried to grasp its leg.

"Bloody bird-brain," Harry muttered. It was as though the whole world were conspiring against him. His mood was too vile to summon his patronus, so instead he focused his rage and hatred. A moment later, Bello burst from his coral-pierced hand.

Harry looked deep into the eyes of his black and red anti-patronus and impressed the message: _Remus, it's Harry here. Sorry about the strange messenger. I need you to pick me up at Lovegood Lookout._

Harry sent Bello off, and then returned to the Lookout. He found Mr Lovegood setting the table, while Luna scraped noxious-smelling filets of some sort of fish from a sizzling pan onto the plates.

Harry groaned inwardly, and sat down at the dining table to await his fate.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Mr Lovegood refused to take no for an answer on the question of seconds, and by the time Harry had forced down his last bite, his face was grey and sweating. He wondered what it was that Luna had _actually_ cooked, and, more importantly, whether he would survive the evening.

"Gulping plimpy is good for the constitution," Luna remarked in her high, musical voice, tilting her head at Harry. "Don't you think so, father?"

Mr Lovegood had just opened his mouth to reply when there came the sound of a door being blasted open, and two bedraggled, frantic-looking men dashed up the stairs. Harry was out of his seat in a moment, poised on the verge of fight or flight, before he realized who they were.

For a moment, everyone just stared at each other wide-eyed. The sandy-haired man was the first to break the silence.

"_Damn it_," Remus hissed, whacking Sirius in the back of the head, "You were supposed to transform, S—Snuffles." He very narrowly avoided using Sirius' real name.

Luna was peering at the two men with calm curiosity, while Mr Lovegood was squinting and furrowing his eyebrows at Sirius, who looked alarmed.

"Er," Remus began, stepping in front of Sirius as if to hide him from view, "Lovely to see you again, Xenophilius. I don't go 'round bursting into people's houses normally, it's just…erm…we got a rather strange message, you see…" He struggled for words, then turned to Harry with a hint of panic showing in his eyes. "Harry! There you are! We'll just, er, be going, shall we…?"

"AHA!" Xenophilius Lovegood cried, his expression lighting up with recognition. Sirius cowered slightly. Mr Lovegood held his finger aloft in triumph. "It's you!"

"Ah…ahaha," Sirius chuckled in ill-disguised fear, "just a, er, family resemblance, cousin of mine, happens all the time, actually," he babbled, gesticulating with his hands while slowly backing out of the room, "why just last week—"

"Stubby Boardman!" Mr Lovegood proclaimed.

Everyone but Luna gaped at the elder Lovegood in various degrees of disbelief. The blonde girl looked delighted. Sirius looked as if he'd been clubbed over the head.

"Mr Boardman, I'm a _huge_ fan," Mr Lovegood declared, hurrying forward to shake Sirius' hand enthusiastically. He dragged Sirius into the living room. "Well! _Well!_ Imagine that, the leader singer of The Hobgoblins in my very own house. You simply must sign an autograph for me."

Mr Lovegood presented Sirius with a quill and a record album that had a close-up of a turnip wearing a moustache and glasses on the cover and the words _Steuben Octavius Boardman: The Underground Years_. Sirius signed 'S. O. B.' with a flourish and handed the record back.

"You simply _must_ come back for tea sometime, Mr Boardman," Xenophilius exclaimed as he showed them out.

"Of course," Sirius replied jauntily. "Drop me a note any time!"

They fled into the night.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

"What the _hell_ was _that_?" Harry demanded, the moment they apparated onto the front stoop of Grimmauld Place.

"Language, Harry," Remus chided.

"What was _that?_" Sirius cried, throwing his hands up in the air. "What was that _message_ you sent us? 'Strange massager picked me up'? 'Love good so look out'?"

Harry face-palmed himself.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Comic misadventures aside, the week at Grimmauld was a welcome respite from Harry's woes. Remus apologized for having gotten the hour of Harry's arrival wrong, and they all enjoyed a relaxing week. Sirius and Remus both seemed more settled, and the two conversed easily, although there were certain topics that they veered widely around. It was over all too soon, though, and Harry found himself once again trudging back to the Wizenwatch village, alone but for his not so loyal snake.

"Who pissssed in your breakfassst, hatchling?" she hissed in his ear as Harry sighed morosely once again, disturbing her slumber, wrapped as she was around his shoulders and chest.

"No one," Harry replied, in the serpent's tongue. He didn't normally share his worries with the snake, as she was singularly unsympathetic, but there was no one else with whom he could share them. "It's jussst my father. He thinksss I'm a murderer. And I can't find my uncle, and I don't have anyone to talk to on the island anymore."

"Ssso? Make sssome new friendsss."

Harry stopped walking, startled. That wasn't a bad idea. Maybe some of the other inmates atop the highest tower had witnessed Rab being taken away. Why hadn't he thought of that?

"You're hopelessss," Lady sighed.

"Sshhut up."

"Ssso? _Did_ you murder sssomeone?"

Harry huffed. "I guess. Only in self-defence, though."

Lady lifted her head from his collar and flicked her tongue at his neck, sampling his scent and taste. Harry swatted her away.

"How wasss it?" she asked morbidly. "Your firssst kill? Was it juicy? Was it sssticky?"

"Go back to sssleep, you bloody reptile," Harry snapped, fighting a sudden bout of nausea.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

As March rolled in, and the island was racked with a series of harsh storms, Harry made the rounds of the tower top, extracting Vows from one prisoner after another. A few had seen and heard Rab being escorted away by guards, and the man had looked well enough at the time. This was good news for Harry, but there was also bad news. He would need more than just invisibility to sneak into the heart of the prison.

Mulciber and Rookwood reported that rune circles were distributed strategically throughout the prison, in such a way as to catch all intruders. Trespassers would be incapacitated and transported to a holding cell. Only those with the tattoo of a prisoner or a guard could pass through safely. The tattoos were inked with a special potion that was stored in the Wizenwarden's office—which, naturally, was guarded by another rune circle. That was beside the point, however, since Harry didn't much fancy engraving his skin with permanent proof that he had once impersonated a Ministry official.

A much more reasonable solution was to destroy the rune circles. When Harry questioned the two Death Eaters, however, Mulciber replied:

"Blow us all sky-'igh, an' I'll come back as an inferius, rip your bleedin' guts out, an' strangle you wiv 'em. Much fun we could 'ave then, eh, boy?" He seemed quite pleased at the prospect.

Rookwood took a more scholarly approach, and lectured Harry's ear off about scaffolding, skeletons, and keystones, by which Harry was made to understand that constructing a rune circle as powerful as those at Azkaban was nearly as precarious an enterprise as erecting a castle, and safely demolishing them was even more so. Rookwood eagerly volunteered his own deft hand for the task, but Harry declined—emphatically. As unstable and off-putting as Rab had been, the other prisoners were worse.

As spring approached, one obstacle finally surrendered before Harry's relentless will. He at last began to get the hang of invisibility. By the equinox, Harry was haunting the village of the Wizenwatch like a voyeuristic poltergeist. At first, he only watched through windows, but soon enough he was brazenly following wizenguards into their homes. He stole food from their dinner plates when their backs were turned, laughed at their favourite Omnivision shows over their shoulders, and rifled through their drawers when they weren't at home. Sometimes he slipped a souvenir of his visit into his pocket.

He learned a great deal on these jaunts, though little that he wished to know. The Wizenwatch, Harry soon discovered, was as riddled with rot and corruption as an abscessed wound swollen with pus and about to burst. Debauchery, dissolution, and desperation were rife on the island of Azkaban, and not only amongst the prisoners.

There were less than fifty wizenguards, and at least half of them nursed an addiction to alcohol or potions. The red, gluey potion put you to sleep, Harry learned, but if woken up, you could fly into a violent, destructive rage. The indigo potion with gold flecks in it made you laugh at things that weren't funny, and want to touch, lick, and bite anyone you came across, no matter how unattractive they were. The lavender potion was to be inhaled. Its steamy clouds of vapour would lull you into a happy daydream, but they would also destroy your short-term memory, and explode at the slightest spark.

Those guards who weren't comforting themselves with a substance were using something else. A few guards whose faces bore poorly-healed scars were in the habit of meeting weekly to batter each other bloody with their fists. Another guard cut herself with her wand every morning before work and every evening before bed. Two muggleborn wizards had become fanatical born-again Christians who secretly plotted against their devil-worshipping fellows, while three pure-blooded witches preferred to smear themselves with the blood of animals and then have sex with each other on Freya's altar¹. The warden took his frustrations out on his wife, who was a mass of black and blue under her clothes. Her perfume, which Harry had once found so repulsive, was in fact healing balm that she slathered on liberally.

Unfortunately, the corruption wasn't limited to after-hours endeavours. At least a dozen guards were smuggling letters in and out of the prison, and a handful were smuggling potions. There was a persistent but unconfirmed rumour that you could smuggle a person out if you had the galleons. Two female guards were prostituting themselves during their off-hours—twenty galleons for sex, ten for a blow job. One of the male guards would do either for free. If the gossip was to be trusted, most of the sane prisoners would do anything you liked for an hour with a patronus, and gladly. The insane prisoners didn't need to be bribed, of course, but were somewhat more likely to bite.

Harry could hardly credit the rot that infested the island, not even to the pervasive effects of the dementors. It was as though, stuck on this dot of land in the middle of nowhere, everyone had collectively gone mad. Either that, or there was something in the water. He had thought the Wizenwatch vile before; now, he considered them worse than their prisoners.

None of this put the boy's mind any more at ease regarding the fate of Rabastan. With invisibility conquered, Harry moved forward with his plans. He quickly developed a spell that would make his coral hand-piece grow cold as he moved closer to the object of his search. It was a crude solution, but it sufficed. During practice sessions, Harry noted a definite drop in temperature between one end of the island and the other. Rabastan was indeed in the prison; the only question that remained was whether he was alive or dead.

Given the problem of the rune circles, Harry also began exploring the viability of scaling the outer walls of the fortress while remaining invisible. This would circumvent the circles neatly, but thus far he found it impossible to remain invisible while casting any other spell. He was nearly at his wit's end, on the day when Lady volunteered herself as a scout.

"Are you ssstupid or just not lissstening?" Harry demanded. He was hurling shells at a cliff face to relieve his frustration. He awarded himself a point for every shell he managed to smash, and subtracted one for every shell that bounced back unharmed. It felt good to do something with just his muscles for once. "Unless you can climb walls, it's no use. I don't mind tattooing _you_," Harry continued, "but it takes a ssspecial ink."

"Ooh, does the ickle sssnake know sssomething the wee human doesn't?" Lady replied, tightening her coil around his neck.

"Ergh," Harry choked out, wrenching her from his neck. He held her face up to his and glared. "Ssspill it, or I'll tossss you in there." He jerked his head, indicating the ocean.

"Hideousss wretch," she hissed in the proud tone of a mother watching her son at a recital. Harry raised his arm as if winding up for a pitch. "All right, all right!" Harry lowered his arm. "The rune circlesss probably don't keep animalsss out."

"You waited until _now_ to tell me thisss?" Harry hissed incredulously. He'd been complaining about the rune circle problem for a fortnight.

"I wasssn't sure I wanted to do it," Lady replied haughtily. "You can barely make your_ssself_ invisible—who knowsss what you'd do to me. And if you think I'm sssneaking in there unprotected, you can think again. The guardsss would ssskin me alive just for a laugh."

"Are you _sssure_ you can get through the circlesss?" Harry questioned intently.

"No," she answered, slithering back up his arm and taking her usual place hanging about his neck. "But I've sssneaked through other rune circles as a sssnake."

"Right," Harry muttered, resisting the urge to wring his familiar's neck, "that needed sssaying, because, of course, there's some other way for you to sssneak through than _as a sssnake_."

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

¹ In Norse mythology, Freya was a major goddess associated with love, sexuality, beauty, fertility, gold, sorcery, war, and death. She claimed the souls of half of those who died valiantly in battle for her realm, Fólkvangr (the other half went to Odin in Valhalla).

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

"How does a rune circle detect what kind of creature is passing through it?" Harry inquired as he passed Rookwood a basket of baked chicken and rolls. The squirrelly little man ripped off half a breast with his yellowed teeth before he answered, and Harry made a face, remembering what he had read about the crimes Rookwood had committed against muggle women.

In the next cell, Mulciber began to whinge about the smell of the food. Harry added a scent shield to the sound shield he had already erected around Rookwood and himself.

"Well," Rookwood began, licking the chicken grease lustily off his fingers, "it doesn't. As even the most cursory study of the art of ancient runes could tell you"—Harry rolled his eyes—"runes can only interact with each other and with elements of primal magic."

"Mm…hmm," Harry murmured flatly. Rookwood was definitely the most intelligent and educated of the prisoners Harry had access to, but this had proved to be a double-edged sword, as the man had guessed Harry's identity during their first encounter. They had been at odds ever since.

"Which is to say," Rookwood continued, looking entirely too amused at Harry's obvious ignorance, "that the runic circles don't 'detect' trespassers, per se, but only their magical cores. They detain _all_ creatures who pass through, except for those who have an attached tattoo. The purpose of the special ink in the tattoos is to anchor the runes to the magical core. As for the core itself, since a magical core is a primal magical substance, much like elemental fire or water, the runic circles and the runes of the tattoos can interact with it."

Harry frowned. "So someone without a magical core could go through just fine? A muggle, for example?"

Rookwood snorted and rearranged himself. It was clear he was thriving on a bit of intellectual stimulation. If only Rab had been so easy to cheer up. Of course, Rookwood had only been in for a few months. "No, _no_. _Every_ creature, magical or otherwise, has a magical core. The magical core of a wizard is simply larger and more accessible than a muggle's."

"But what about animals? Can't animals go through rune circles sometimes, when humans can't?"

"Ah, well," Rookwood continued contentedly, "each activation of a runic circle brings a magical cost to bear on the wizards whose cores power it—in this case, the wizenguards and prisoners. They are often designed—the ones at Azkaban included—in such a way as to prevent superfluous activation. This is generally achieved by restricting the magical cores that will trigger the circle's activation to lie within a narrow size range, which in this case probably covers only those beings capable of infiltrating the prison."

Harry tapped his lips and let his gaze drift off into space. He knew even less about magical cores than about runes. At least he'd _heard_ of runes. "Hmm…is there some way to—I don't know—temporarily deactivate a magical core, or store it outside of the body?"

Rookwood made a strangled noise that might have been laughter. "Deactivate, maybe. The Draught of Living Death might do it. Remove it? No. That would result in immediate death. That is exactly how the _Avada Kedavra_ kills, in fact—that curse simply expels the magical core."

Harry blinked. He could feel a light dawning inside him. "When you say _magical core, _do you really mean _soul_?"

Rookwood's lips wriggled like worms as he suppressed his laughter. "Only an ignoramus with no real understanding at all of the mysteries of magic would term it so. That particular, er, epithet"—he coughed politely—"is best left to ignorant Muggles and shamans."

Harry steepled his fingers and regarded coolly the specimen of humanity before him. "Why use four syllables when one will suffice?"

Rookwood seemed to sense Harry's annoyance, but he did not back down. "I'll have you know that magical cores are one of my areas of particular expertise, young man. When I left my post as an Unspeakable, I was in the midst of researching a spell that would actually extract and isolate a core for further study. The idea was to use potions to make visible—"

"Souls don't simply stay put once they're out of the body, though," Harry interjected, and he could not keep a note of keen curiosity from entering his voice. "How _exactly _were you planning to keep hold of it?"

Rookwood cocked his head and gave Harry a curious look. "Well, you seem to know something about the matter. What would you suggest?"

Harry watched Rookwood warily for a moment. "I would suggest that extracting a soul is a rather creative epithet for murder."

A twisted grin spread unpleasantly over Rookwood's face. "Some of my co-workers agreed, as it happens. And here I am!" He spread his arms in mock triumph.

"Thank you," Harry told the man as he rose and brushed his clothes off. "I have what I need."

"Wait!" Rookwood called, scrambling up to the bars and pressing his face against them as Harry rounded the corner. "I'll tell you! I was going to use a dementor to store the magical core! Someone I once knew taught me to communicate with them. I can't hear them, but I can speak to them!"

Harry froze in mid-step in front of Mulciber's cell. Said man was currently wanking and gave Harry's bum an appreciative leer.

"Who?" Harry called as he sneered at Mulciber's pale, worm-like appendage. Mulciber flicked his tongue invitingly in the boy's direction.

"You've met him," Rookwood answered with a hungry note in his voice, "or so we lesser mortals are given to understand. Tell me, do you remember the moment when your so-called _soul_ left your body? Because I would be truly fascinated to hear all about it."

Harry took his leave with as much dignity as he could muster. As he descended the winding stair, he did his best not to linger on this disturbing similarity between himself and his mother's murderer.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Harry passed through the first rune circle with excruciating slowness. He had always been the sort to rip a plaster off quickly to get it over with, but he was terrified of waking up in a Ministry holding cell to the sight of his father's disappointed and disgusted face. He literally could not imagine a worse fate, short of bunking with Mulciber, or death, which might be preferable.

When he was past the circle, Harry took a few seconds to breathe deeply his relief. It seemed that his mutilated soul was small enough to be considered unworthy of guarding against. That was disturbing in and of itself. It was also a bit galling to realize he had wasted weeks of research on a non-existent problem. Yet he had learned something so interesting in the process —_magical bloody cores, my arse—_that he wasn't terribly upset. Once he had located his wayward uncle, he planned to spend the next few months poring over everything he could find on the topic.

Strolling the gloomy corridors of Azkaban was, Harry reflected, perhaps _slightly _more dangerous than picking the Warden's pocket, but he had grown accustomed to passing undetected beneath the noses of the guards, and it did not feel much different to do so in the prison than in the village. The prisoners were the main difference, and Harry had already met the worst of them.

For one did not score a cell atop the highest tower of Azkaban by chance—no, those cells were reserved for the ones who had truly distinguished themselves, as were the cells closest to the guards' stations, where the air was the warmest and the food the hottest. Harry had to look away as he passed an open cell where two guards were simultaneously enjoying the attentions of a female prisoner. A shining silver tarantula patronus, perched atop her arching back, sat up and wriggled its forelegs in Harry's direction as he passed. It seemed he was not so invisible as he had supposed.

The patronuses were not the only ones who could see Harry, however—the dementors could, as well.

"Ha-a-alf-so-o-oul," one of them croaked as it sailed past him with a fluttering of its black cloak and a slight dip of its head. Harry glared at it suspiciously and walked a little faster.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Mordred, Harry concluded as he finally reached the ground floor of Azkaban, had been a madman, if his fortress this truly was. Only a lunatic could have designed the zigzagging labyrinth of corridors. Or perhaps the intention was to delay invaders while the castle's occupants withdrew to ever higher levels, before finally escaping down the twisted stair into the grotto beneath the waves. The layout had certainly delayed Harry: it had taken him two hours to descend only ten stories.

On the ground floor at last, Harry found the main entrance to the prison, where stood two colossal doors large enough to admit giants without stooping. The giants' doors were barred, however; guards entered and exited the prison through a smaller side door. The ceiling and edges of the titanic entryway were lost in shadows, but the guards seemed to chiefly orbit about a small, brightly lit room whence issued the sounds of laughter and gossip.

Harry approached the bright room warily, on the lookout for dementors and patronuses that might give his position away, or even attack him. A silvery fox glanced at him curiously, but dismissed him, so Harry slipped inside. This was the canteen, he realized, as he indifferently surveyed the tables of guards sipping tea, smoking, eating their lunches, and playing cards. Harry was just on the point of leaving again, when a particularly hearty gust of laughter caught his ear.

"That's what she said," James guffawed, and clapped his neighbour, a beefy, red-faced man, on the shoulder. Harry's mouth fell open a bit. It had been months since he'd heard his father laugh.

James flicked his cigarette into an ash bin and sauntered toward the door. As he passed a petite female guard with sandy-blonde hair, she shot him a sideways glance, and he looked her up and down before smiling slyly and raising his eyebrows questioningly and shooting a significant glance at the door.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

In the dank gloom of an abandoned cell in a subterranean corridor, a flirtatious laugh drew Harry like an unwilling thrall to the scene. In silhouettes of black on grey, it unfolded. Two shadowy forms wrestled against the stone wall, then fell to the bench. She reached for his mouth with hers, but he evaded her, and she dipped her head and teased him by pulling down his zipper with her teeth and a throaty chuckle.

The sounds of slick flesh sliding over flesh issued from beneath a curtain of hair. Her pinkie finger stuck out comically as she used her hand to assist. The scuff of a boot on stone indicated a leg being drawn up, and a drawn-out groan expressed approval.

She lifted her mouth off him with a little sucking _pop_ and murmured, "Like that, baby?" in a coquettish voice.

"A lot better with your lips around it," he answered callously. She resumed her task with a huff of annoyance.

There was a hiss of air as a cigarette was lit, and in the flare of James' wand, Harry briefly saw his father's face. His eyes were shadowy hollows. Harry wondered if his father spent his nights away from home in this woman's arms.

A grunt was all that marked the climax of the event: the sort of noise a man makes when shifting heavy furniture without a wand.

"Thanks," James muttered as he zipped his trousers up and propelled her from the cell with a hand on the small of her back. Harry, who was still in the hallway outside the cell, stepped back. "See you tomorrow."

"What about what you promised?" she asked indignantly.

"If you wanted me at your little soirée, you should've made me go before you sucked my dick. Now shove off, I need a kip."

"Fucking bastard!" she cried, as she shot a hex at him. James deflected her wrath with a quick shield and slammed the iron door in her face, and, unknowingly, in Harry's.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

After notes: I'm particularly curious to hear thoughts on the scene at the Lovegoods. Thanks! :) Someone pointed out that I was inconsistent with Xenophilius' attitude towards Harry, so I have gone back and fixed that in previous chapters so that he never forbade Luna from seeing Harry.


	15. In the Belly of the Sea

o─-o─-o─-─-─-─ **WITHOUT THORN THE ROSE** ─-─-─-─o-─o-─o

Summary: When Lily died she left a broken James to raise a stranger's son. When a drunken act of violence sees James demoted to prison guard, Harry is inducted into the mysteries of Azkaban, and begins to solve the mysteries of his own existence, as well. SLASH. AH/AU. Some RL/SB, RL/JP, future LV/HP in sequels.

Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling.

Warnings: SLASH. But not in this chapter.

Notes: One more chapter left after this one. This chapter is mythology-heavy, so there are tons of pins up on my Pinterest (same user name) for this chapter.

o─-─-─-─-─ 15. IN THE BELLY OF THE SEA ─-─-─-─-─o

Harry wandered the tortuous tangle of basement tunnels in pitch darkness, one hand on the wall to keep himself from stumbling. He was circling the locus of cold detected by his coral focus, where he would find his uncle. From time to time, he wondered how he would ever find his way out of the warren of tunnels, but the mission drew him on. Rabastan was here, somewhere, and Harry would find him, dead or alive.

The passages grew narrower and the ceilings dropped as he descended into the earth. There were souls somewhere in the maze of tunnels, too far away to identify. Finally, at the end of a passage that Harry had to stoop to traverse, he caught a flicker of red-orange torch-light that accompanied three swirling souls. There were voices, too, but Harry could not make them out until he reached the end of the corridor, which required him to crawl on his hands and knees. He was not prepared for the sight that awaited him.

Harry was looking out from a crack in the wall of a large natural cavern, not unlike the one that the charnel cliff caves connected to. The ceiling and other walls were lost in darkness. The object of his search was strapped to a metal table with leather restraints binding his ankles, wrists, waist, and forehead to the table. His long auburn hair had been crudely hacked off, exposing a face that might have been a skull but for the wild eyes that rolled in deep, bruised sockets. His soul appeared more ragged than ever. A grey-bearded guard stirred a pewter cauldron nearby, and every so often Rabastan looked at him and sobbed quietly.

Harry padded to Rab on tiptoes and touched his shoulder lightly—the Death Eater screamed bloody murder, then hacked convulsively, spattering Harry with a fine spray of blood. Harry nearly leapt out of his skin, but the guard ignored them.

Something clattered behind Harry, and he and the grey-bearded guard both whirled.

"Oh, it's you," the greybeard guard muttered.

"Were you expecting someone else?" the Wizenwarden, Oakes, replied dryly. His reedy voice, thin face, and closely-set eyes mirrored the thinness of his soul. There were flaps of skin below his chin, as though he had once been much larger, and the way they wobbled when he spoke reminded Harry of a rooster.

"Potter's been asking after Lestrange," the Wizenwarden reported. "I trust you and your Order will take care of it?" He emphasized the word 'Order' oddly.

The greybeard shrugged. "If necessary. I have the potion ready."

"Took you long enough. Will it work? I can't wait another month."

"I told you it was a long shot. It'll open him up, but as to what comes out…who knows?"

The Warden huffed. "I've had about enough of waiting on his scrawny arse. If this doesn't work, that's it. Game over." He leaned casually on the metal table and looked down at Rabastan. "Hello, Lestrange, you lovely shit-sack, you. How are you this fine day?"

Rabastan spit blood into the Warden's face and for half a second the torches flared and Harry could feel the Death Eater's raw, powerful magic hammering against the bars of its cage. Then came a shouted expletive, a snarled curse, and the rattle and drum of bony limbs on metal as Rabastan convulsed with pain. The Warden held him under the curse for a full minute, and when he released Rab, a trickle of blood dripped from the corner of the prisoner's mouth, and his defiant magic had gone back into hiding.

"Now, now, none of that," the Warden cooed. Rabastan moaned, and the Warden stroked his cheek in a parody of kindness. "There, there, we'll be done with you soon. Just a little longer now."

Harry could have incapacitated the two guards without delay, set Rabastan free, and smuggled him out somehow, but he stayed his hand. There was something strange going on here, and Harry's instincts told him to wait and find out what it was. He felt a twinge of guilt at letting his uncle continue to suffer, but the contest between his curiosity and his compassion was no contest at all, really; he sat back and watched the show.

"Here it is," the greybeard said, funnelling a draught of runny mauve potion into a flask.

"Open wide," the Warden instructed Rab, with a flick of his wand that forced the man's jaws wide open and straining. The Warden poured the potion down Rab's throat, and Rab was forced to either swallow it or inhale it. He swallowed.

After a moment in which both guards waited impatiently, Rab's eyes fell half-shut, and his body went limp.

"How do you feel, Lestrange?"

Rabastan's wild, bloodshot eyes widened, and, in a voice made hoarse by all his screaming, he rattled off, "Shitty, hellish, awful, dreadful, manky, rotten, horrible, frightful."

The Warden laughed. "Now. Tell us again why you deserve a posh new cell."

Harry frowned.

Rabastan moaned. "I don't. I don't deserve anything nice or posh or cushy or lux or anything at all. I deserve to be dropped in a pit in the ground and forgotten."

The Warden snorted. "Where exactly do you think you are?"

Rab looked around curiously. "Underground? Beneath the earth? Somewhere subterranean, most definitely. I suspect it is somewhere beneath Azkaban, but I can't be certain. It could be Hades. Tartarus. There's a distinct possibility."

"All right, then, Lestrange, why don't you tell us what you wanted us to know, back when you asked about a new cell."

"Why? Because I _can't_," Rab moaned, "I made a Vow. It's right here, on the tip of my tongue"—he wiggled his tongue in the air—"but I _can't_."

Harry's stomach sank. Rab's last words to him now held a dark import: _"_I'm_ your uncle. Keep favouring him and I'll start to think you don't care for me."_ The man was no fool. He must have realized that Harry had helped Sirius escape, and, in a fit of jealous rage, tried to betray the boy.

Harry clenched his jaw. Rage bubbled up within him at the thought that Rab had wanted to sell his nephew's secrets for a cushier cell. The next moment, however, Harry's heart softened, and his fists unclenched. Rab didn't deserve this torture. Still, Harry was just mad enough to continue watching without interfering, even now that he knew what was going on.

"What _can_ you tell us, then?" the Warden asked impatiently. The greybeard grimaced as though this were a blunder, which it was proved the next moment when Rab began to spew his guts.

"Oh, all kinds of things," the prisoner babbled, "I can tell you where I was born—London—and where I went to Primary—the Clacoquin Conservatoire for Boys of Good Breeding. I can tell you I was the best flautist in my year, and that I got to play the solo at the recital, but Rogerick booed me, and I tripped over my music stand and broke my nose. I can tell you I never played the flute again after that—not because I couldn't, but because my mother was rubbish at healing, and my nose made a funny kind of honk whenever I tried to play after that. I can tell you"—he was cut off by the Warden's bellow.

"Enough! What can you tell us about unusual things going on here at Azkaban?"

"Oh, loads," Rab jabbered. "I can tell you that the dementors have been talking, and I don't mean to each other. I can tell you the front door isn't the only way out of here. I can tell you that not all of the skeletons around here are who you think they are."

Harry swallowed a lump of fear burrowing up his throat. Nothing Rab had mentioned could exactly be considered a secret of his, but they were awfully close. He would have to tighten the terms of the Vows he got in future, that was certain.

"We _know_ all of that already," the Warden sighed. "What can you tell us about the prison that we _don't _know?"

Rab made a high hysterical sound. Harry wasn't sure if it was a laugh or a sob. "Lots. There's a great big crack on the ceiling of my cell and when it rains the water…"

Rab nattered on in that fashion, while the Warden sighed and slung himself into a nearby chair. "You have a go," he told the greybeard, who nodded curtly and leaned over Rabastan. The man produced a piece of parchment from within his robe, and began to systematically snap out questions.

"Does Adcock speak to the dementors?"

"I don't know. Mayb—"

"Does Alderwood speak to the dementors?"

"I don't kno—"

"Does Bloodworth speak to the dementors?"

"I don—"

If Harry hadn't just taken a calming potion, he might have downed another. He could see where this was going. He had never told Rab his real name, but if the man was sharp enough to realize that Harry had helped Sirius escape, he might be sharp enough to guess the truth. Two other prisoners had found Harry out, after all.

The questioning continued in this fashion until they arrived at the P's.

"Does Potter speak to the dementors?"

Rabastan opened his mouth to speak, and abruptly lost consciousness. The two guards exchanged a significant look.

"There you have it," the greybeard concluded with a tiny, measured smile that was no more than a spasm of his lips. "All that remains is to clear away the rubbish."

"Leave Potter to me," the Warden replied with a greasy smile. "It would be my pleasure."

"No," the greybeard replied sharply. "Potter is ours. You are to observe only—for now."

"You promised"—the Warden began, but the greybeard cut him off. Harry wondered at the strange authority the man seemed to have over the Warden. His uniform indicated that he was only a wizenguard, but he was obviously more.

"I promised nothing. However, for your assistance, you may take Lestrange to your…meeting."

The Warden glared mutinously, but eventually he acquiesced. With a flick of his wand, the Warden stunned Rabastan, and, with a twirl, he released the straps binding the prisoner down.

"Care to join the festivities?" the Warden inquired with poisonous tact as he levitated the Death Eater's body toward a tunnel.

The greybeard shot the Warden a wry look. "The Order overlooks your quaint traditions for now, but you _will_ be brought to heel in due time."

By this point, Harry was sick of watching this tawdry drama play out, but there was more to be known. Who was the greybeard? What was this Order? What was this meeting? Harry decided to continue watching and waiting, for the moment. He followed closely at the Warden's heels. So it was that the queer procession wound its way through the dark maze of tunnels, the way illuminated only by dim wizard-light that wrought sinister shadows upon walls that had never known the light of day.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

Harry padded softly behind the Warden and the floating, unconscious Death Eater. The tunnel burrowed ever deeper into the earth, and the sound of the waves crashing against the stone around them grew ever louder and more ominous as they walked. The terrible force of the surging sea made the corridor shudder, and the rocks groaned like a chorus of inferi. Even Harry, who normally felt at ease in the dark and the cold, was unnerved.

When they had passed below the level of the sea, Harry could sense the colossal pressure of the ocean all around them, like a storm brewing, and he had an odd sense that his body was becoming lighter and looser as the air grew colder. Even his magic seemed to flow more freely. The constant strain of bending light around his body to make himself invisible eased. Though in a way this feeling was reassuring, it also made him uneasy, as it spoke of ambient magic unseen and unknown.

The Warden, Oakes, seemed to be experiencing the opposite effect. He visibly struggled to continue levitating Rabastan, and the Death Eater's hands and feet, which were dangling bonelessly, began to drag on the stone floor. Harry was still caught between fury and pity for his uncle. On the one hand, Rab had tried to betray Harry's secrets to gain a better cell, but, on the other hand, he had been maltreated for years and outright tortured of late.

Ahead, Harry began to pick up a hushed murmuring, of the waves, he thought. As they drew closer to a gathering of souls, however, he realized that the murmuring was human voices. Ahead, a large circular stone blocked the end of the corridor. The Warden transfigured his clothing into a dark plum-coloured robe with a forceful flick of his wand, then tapped a rapid and complicated sequence of signs on the stone. The great rock rolled into the wall of the passage with a grating rumble, and the Warden, Rabastan, and Harry descended a flight of steps and emerged on what had to be the lowest level of Azkaban.

The room was one great, low-roofed cavern, illuminated by floating wizard-lights, studded with ancient, dripping stalagmites and stalactites. The perimeters were lined with thousands upon thousands of bones, stacked neatly into walls. The sight was macabre, even to Harry, who had seen more than his share of death. This was not what his eyes were most drawn to, however.

Ahead of them, in the centre, orbs of violet wizard-light clustered about a great and fearful statue of a creature who was a beautiful winged woman from the waist up and a scaly, coiled nightmare from the waist down. Harry halted by the entrance and simply stared at the bizarre tableau.

Before the statue, dozens of people in dark purple robes were kneeling and chanting in an unintelligible cacophony, while above their heads hundreds of dementors seethed in a churning frenzy that resembled a school of spectral fish. There were no patronuses present, Harry realized with a shock, yet none of the humans—_wizenguards, they must be—_seemed bothered by the dementors. This revelation was both disturbing and intriguing. If either group decided to go against him, Harry would have difficulty removing Rabastan. Perhaps he had made a mistake in waiting so long to rescue his uncle. Yet Harry only stood, watching and listening. His thirst to know more had overwhelmed his better judgement.

As the Warden stepped forward, the crowd of kneelers parted, and at his signal their chanting began anew, in unison.

_Obsecro te Mater Tenebrarum Echidna, Monstrorum Regina, plenissime irae, Gaia et Tartarus filia, mater horribilissima, mater viperae, morte regum, iusti ruinas, morborum omnium qui tibi displicent: fons aquae foetidus, fons et sordes putrescet, fons et corruptionis infirmitas__…¹_

Harry's Latin was good, and he translated the words easily, though he didn't understand all of the references.

_I beseech thee Dark Mother Echidna², Queen of Monsters most full of wrath, the daughter of Gaia and Tartarus³, mother most dreadful, mother of vipers, death of kings, ruin of the righteous, disease upon all who displease thee: font of fetid waters, font of rot and filth, font of corruption and sickness…_

_What sort of hellish ceremony is this? _Harry wondered. Given the wizenguards' proclivities, however, he supposed he should not be so surprised that they chose a dark and demonic goddess to worship.

The crowd of kneelers continued their chant as the Warden carried Rab's limp body forward and placed it on an altar at the foot of the statue. Harry's jaw tightened. He knew what the three acolytes of Freya did at their altar—blood sacrifices and sexual rites. Harry circled the crowd of purple robed guards to stand a few feet from Rabastan's head. At the first sign of blood, he was prepared to throw his shield of invisibility over his uncle and make for the stairs. The thought of being pursued by a bloodthirsty mob of fully-trained wizards, however, was daunting.

The Warden turned and raised both hands for silence. "Wands," he called a voice that echoed eerily in the vast chamber.

There was a rustle of robes as dozens of wands were produced and aimed at the statue of Echidna. Harry and the Warden both ducked so as not to be in the line of spells.

"Cast when ready."

A bolt of brilliant purple light shot wordlessly from every wand and connected to the statue. Harry watched in bemused silence for several minutes until a miracle began to take shape. At first, he thought he was imagining the wisps of light, but as the seconds ticked by and the glowing threads began to coalesce and pulse with life, he knew that what he perceived was real.

A soul was forming inside the statue.

There was a hollow _boom_, a violent blast of force, and the congregation was flattened. Even the dementors were crushed, immobile, to the ceiling. Harry found himself pressed to the rough stone floor and struggled to lift his head. It felt as though gravity had tripled.

There was a stabbing pain in the back of his head where it had struck the ground, and he heard himself groaning distantly. For a moment, he fumbled his magic and became partially visible, but within seconds, he firmed his shield of invisibility. His magic was still flowing more freely than he had ever felt it. When he finally lifted his head and was able to focus his eyes, which did not want to heed him, he could not fathom what he beheld.

The statue blazed with soul-light as fiercely as the noon-day sun. The wispy strands of soul that had just barely formed were now a solid, compact mass that radiated light so intense that Harry felt sure his eyes would have been damaged had they been the organs by which he perceived souls. This soul was so much greater than anything he had ever seen that he felt himself an insect by comparison. They were, all of them, ants before a giantess.

Then the statue began, piece by piece, to come to life.

With a sticky squelching sound, the wings twitched sluggishly, then flared wide and beat—once, twice—showering the congregation with a foul-smelling black liquid. Rather than feathers, they were covered with tendrils of what looked like reddish-black rotting kelp. The statue's hair, too, was composed of this repulsive material, which began to writhe and twist with a mind of its own.

Underneath the hair, however, the face of the statue was so lovely as to catch Harry's breath. Smooth, high-boned cheeks flushed with the rosy bloom of health, and exquisitely shaped black eyes seemed to glitter with the light of reflected stars. The lips could have been a cherry, so red and ripe were they. The chest was bare, proudly displaying two perfectly formed breasts, which lifted slightly with breath. Two velvet-soft nipples hardened as Harry watched, and the living statue trailed her fingers across them languorously, then down her smooth belly to her sex. That was where her beauty ended, for the hair of her nether regions was as putrid and foul as the rotting slime covering her wings and head.

Below her hips, however, the true horror started. There, the skin of the statue ran to black scales, and each leg became the tail of a massive snake, so that she had no proper legs at all. Each snake tail was two metres or more long, and they coiled beneath her to hold her aloft.

The picture she formed was, in all, grotesque, yet her soul burned like the sun, and Harry could not help but be awed by the power of that glow. This—this—_thing_—it was a goddess! It had to be. With that thought, Harry felt his understanding of the world tilting precariously.

One snake-leg uncoiled, then the other, and the living statue slithered forward in a parody of walking, down a shallow set of steps cut into her plinth. As she moved, Harry experienced a moment of vertigo, and thought that he had double vision, but he quickly realized that there actually _were_ two figures. The stone statue had not truly come to life; it stood as cold and lifeless as ever on its base, and only some magical artifice made him think that it lived and breathed. It was the impossibly large soul that moved forward, clothed in a powerful illusion that took the shape of the demon-angel-goddess with her wings and scales.

As soon as Harry had realized this fact, however, it slipped away from him, and the stone statue disappeared. He focused, and it appeared again. The harder he tried to focus on the fact of its existence, however, the more rapidly its appearance fluctuated. He felt dizzy, as though he were under the influence of some hallucinogen. Perhaps he was.

In the meantime, he had missed the Warden climbing to his feet again. "Sit vas procedent," the man called in his reedy voice. _Let a vessel come forth_, Harry translated.

A dark, fluttering shape detached itself from the ceiling and swooped down like a great black bat. It was a dementor. The demon-angel-goddess stepped forward and her form was superimposed on the fluttering, black shape. Their interposed images shimmered until only the dementor's was left, along with the brilliant glow of the massive soul now inside it. The dementor raised its hands slowly, and Harry saw that those hands were no longer scarred and rotting like those of its brethren.

The dementor pushed its dark hood back, and Harry gasped_. _This dementor had once been Astraea Crouch. She let the loose, rippling black robe fall to the ground and stood naked before them, her life, youth, and beauty seemingly restored. Glossy blond curls adorned her head in a bob cut, and clear blue eyes surveyed the crowd of prostrated wizenguards. Her skin was smooth and unmarred from head to toe, so unlike the half-rotted monster she had been before.

It was not truly Astraea, though, and Harry would have known that even if he had not seen the giant soul thrumming just below her skin. Astraea's eyes had only ever contained grief, and madness, when they contained anything at all. She would never have looked at a crowd of worshippers with such hunger and lust, as if she wanted to eat them all alive while she mated with their corpses. Harry forced himself to focus on the reality lying below the surface of the illusion, but the magic was strong. He saw only a momentary glimmer of the cadaverous, eyeless creature that she was in truth.

The demon-angel-goddess, wearing Astraea's body, stepped to the altar before her and banished the rags from Rabastan's body with a swish of her hand. Harry's uncle had regained consciousness, and by the terror in his eyes and the tiny jerking motions of his limbs, Harry knew the man was trying and failing to get away.

"Mater, quæsumus accipere sacrificium," the Warden murmured, bowing so low that his forehead touched the ground. _Mother, we beseech thee to accept the sacrifice._

Rabastan's limp white organ sprang to attention at the barest brush of the goddess' fingers, despite the terrified man's struggles, and the goddess climbed atop it with Astraea's body and sank down onto it with a sigh. Magic pulsed and the sea throbbed around them all as she undulated against him. Her slight, smooth breasts shook in time with her motions and with the magic, but if Harry concentrated, he could see the skeletal and diseased form of a dementor, its half-rotted skin sloughing off as it raked its nails over its own breasts.

An unwanted idea forced its way into Harry's mind—Lily writhing and moaning atop a putrefying monster in the Department of Mysteries. Harry covered his mouth and averted his eyes, fighting the urge to vomit. _Please, gods, _he thought, _don't let it have been like __**this**__._

The magic swelled to a crescendo, and, against his will, Harry's eyes were drawn back to the demonic mating ritual. Astraea's form was evolving. The goddess threw her head back with pleasure, and wriggling black tendrils of hair sprouted, replacing the blond curls. At the height of her pleasure, her groans became a growl, and then a shriek. Curved black talons like those of a raptor grew from her hands.

She made a grasping motion—and began to pull out Rabastan's soul.

Harry didn't think, he simply acted. With of a burst of magic, he blasted the goddess off his uncle. She didn't go sprawling like the crone in Knockturn, however; she somersaulted in mid-air and landed on her feet, which had also grown rapacious talons. From a crouch, she regarded him with fierce, intelligent eyes. His invisibility had fallen, leaving him vulnerable to the entire lunatic mob, who remained, for the moment, frozen in confusion and shock.

Harry's heart pounded, and he felt fear creeping up his spine. What the hell was he doing? This was a _goddess_. Nonetheless, despite his lingering resentment for the man, Harry couldn't let his uncle be murdered before his very eyes.

"Leave him alone," Harry called, in a voice that sounded terribly uncertain.

The goddess laughed, and waved one arm carelessly at the seething cloud of dementors. From that moment, the fight was on.

Dementors dropped from the ceiling and rushed at Harry like a swarm of bats. If the purple-robed cultists had joined the attack, the dark-haired boy would certainly have been overwhelmed, but the wizards and witches seemed to remember their horror of dementors when the creatures swooped down over them, and the crowd broke up in a riotous panic.

Harry hissed expletives even as he knocked the black-cloaked creatures out of the air with wild clubs of magic. He managed to erect an omnidirectional shield, but every blow to it sent a throb of pain through his head, and, worse, the dementors were sucking at his soul. They were too far away to do any real damage, but their efforts were making him dizzy and sick. Harry turned the tactic back against them, but although the souls in their bellies tore loose easily, the scraps of what had once been their human souls merely fluttered and refused to be uprooted. It was useless, and the boy quickly resorted back to his normal magic.

Harry's blunt blows hit the dementors like well-aimed bludgers, but they recovered quickly, and he scrambled to find a better tactic. The dementors' black cloaks soon proved immune to cuts and burns, but their flesh was vulnerable. Exposed hands went flying, and Harry slashed every skull he could see clean in half. Their hands they ignored, but cutting their brains in half seemed to keep the creatures down. At the direction of their leader, however, they pulled their hoods down, shielding themselves.

Harry did his damnedest to send a jet of white-hot flame up every hem and under every cowl, but it was hard to aim when the bloody things wouldn't stop zipping around him. He must have been making a dent, though, because the goddess deigned to aid her eyeless army.

"Glacies!" the goddess thundered, _ice_, and the air grew frigid within seconds. The flames shooting from Harry's coral-pierced hand flickered and died. Frost formed on his lips and eyelashes, but he merely brushed it off.

_Dementors—fuck, how do I stop a dementor?_ Then it came to him. Harry struggled for a moment to remember his mother's eyes, and not imagine her pinned under a monstrous bloated corpse—and then his patronus, Pax, burst from his hand.

The argent dove circled Harry, trailing streams of silver magic. At a gesture from their leader, the dementors fell back. The goddess darted through their ranks in Astraea's naked and nimble body, and—incredibly, impossibly—snatched Pax from the air with her curved black talons. She crammed the bird against her mouth and bit off his head with savage glee. Her wickedly sharp teeth were black with rot. Harry gaped in horror.

The dementors surged forward again, and Harry, panting now, strengthened his shield, keeping them as back as he could. The boost to his magic that he experienced in the cavern was all that was keeping him in the fight, he knew, and yet it was not enough. He looked around for something, anything, and found Rab, crouched behind the statue, hiding his nakedness with a robe he had pinched from a felled dementor. The look in the man's sea-green eyes was feral. Harry took a moment to throw a warming charm at his uncle, and then re-joined the battle with new determination. He was on his own—but then, he always had been.

Harry clenched his teeth and focused as hard as he ever had on a new spell. He held his happiest memories in reserve as if he were going to summon his patronus, but instead he channelled a cutting curse through the memories, and hoped against hope that his desperate need and desire would make the spell work. It failed—once—twice—but then a silver scythe-shaped light flew from his hand and into the dementors.

"HA!" Harry shouted in triumph as the dementors in the path of the patronus-scythe were sliced in two, cloaks and all. Vicious, righteous triumph surged within him, and he used the elation to power his magic as he swiftly cut down every dementor in range. Those whose skulls he missed still twitched feebly, but they could not fly.

The goddess shrieked and waved the dementors back, but not before Harry had halved their numbers. _Now_, he thought, and slashed at the goddess possessing Astraea's body with a cutting curse. She deflected it with a flick of her hand, sneering. He snapped off a stalagmite and hurled it at her—she responded with a rain of splintered bones from the encircling walls. He made the ground beneath her feet erupt in a fountain of rubble, and she brought the ceiling crashing down at his head.

When he could maintain his attacks no more, Harry fell to one knee, panting hoarsely and clutching his pounding head. Something wet dripped from his nose, and he wiped away a smear of blood. His body was bruised from lunging across the rough cavern floor to avoid her attacks, and his muscles were shaking. With a mighty effort, he summoned Pax again, and kept the silver dove close. He could no longer maintain any sort of shield.

The goddess circled him lightly on bare feet, eyes sharp as an eagle's. Suddenly, red light flashed, and he threw an arm over his eyes, deflecting the spell by sheer accidental magic. She cast again, wandlessly, and again, and again, sending beams of scarlet light at him from every side as she darted about him in a frenzied dance.

Harry's coral-pierced hand flailed franticly as he parried the spells, but his arm felt heavier each time, and several of the red beams hit him with small explosions of pain. Numbness spread from the site of each hit, and Harry knew that if he didn't fight its spread, he would lose consciousness. Terror and desperation was all that fuelled him as he fought the grey fuzz that was creeping in at the edges of his vision. He felt warmth running down his cheeks, and one of his eyes seemed to bulge as though it would pop out of its socket.

In the heat of the battle, Harry did not notice the absence of his patronus or the dementors until it was too late. Cold, slimy hands seized his legs and wrestled him to the ground, grinding his face into the rough stone. A few of the grounded creatures must have crawled back into the fight. The dementors held his coral-pierced hand in an iron grip against the floor. They could not disarm him, but they prevented him aiming at them. Harry yelled and struck out wildly with his magic, but succeeded only in punching holes into the stone.

Cruel, curved claws clicked against stone as a pair of small, white feet entered Harry's field of vision. He struggled to raise his chin enough to meet the goddess' eyes, scraping his cheek in the process. She sneered down at him, eyes glittering with hunger and amusement.

Harry took the only course left to him. He reached deep inside himself for that familiar power that had been his for as long as he could remember, and froze the dementors solid. Their bodies shattered with the crash and clink of brittle glass as he wrestled free of them, and Harry snarled in victory. The goddess howled in rage as her last allies were felled. Harry turned to the monstrous creature and gave her borrowed body the same treatment. What remained of Astraea's flesh crumbled in a tinkling shower of crystallized gore.

Yet the goddess remained.

She emerged from the dementor's body as from a cocoon, as ghastly and beautiful as before, in her winged, living statue form. Harry was too exhausted to see beyond the illusion; all he could focus on was her blazing soul. In a last, desperate effort, he _shoved_, not at her body this time but at that giant, shining soul. The goddess' illusionary body warped, like a ripple passing over a pond, and she staggered. Great swathes and billows of soul tore away from her and dissolved, but it was like trying to put out a forest fire by blowing on it. Blood rolled down Harry's cheeks from his eyes as he strained with every ounce of will left to him. It was working, but not quickly enough. The goddess had recovered her focus.

Harry scrambled back feebly as the now desperate goddess lunged for him. She sunk her claws into his shoulders, and though they might have been illusory, the pain was not. Harry screamed, but the sound was distant and fuzzy. The monstrous goddess breathed a fetid stench into his face as, horribly, she began to push back at his soul. Harry strained with all his might, but he could feel his own consciousness sliding away on a tide of pain. She had only a witch-sized soul left to her now, but, even so, Harry knew that he was about to die.

Then a hoarse, panicked voice screamed, "_Avada Kedavra!_"

The last light of the goddess' soul dissolved like a wisp of smoke, and her illusionary body with it.

Harry's soul slammed back into him, and all of his pains made themselves known again, more powerfully than before: the explosive throbbing of his head, the piercing needles of pain in his eyes and ears, the strained and battered muscles, and, worst of all, the stab wounds in his chest, which were gushing with blood, and were not at all illusory. Harry choked on coppery-tasting blood as he struggled to remain conscious, and his vision blurred as he looked up at his saviour.

It was Rab, standing over him in a black robe, with a wand clenched in a shaking fist. Harry's vision was so unfocused that the man seemed to be floating. Behind the Death Eater, crumpled on the stone floor with a shattered urn near his head, lay the Wizenwarden.

Harry vaguely comprehended what had transpired, and he tried to speak, to thank his uncle, but the world was being carried away on a cloud of grey fog. A moment later, he knew no more.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

¹ I'm sure my Latin is a nightmare since I've never studied it and relied on Google Translator mostly. Please correct it if you feel the urge.

² In Greek mythology, Echidna was a dreadful drakaina_, _half-nymph and half-serpent, who was mother to most of the famous monsters, including Cerberus, the Sphinx, the Chimaera, etc. She resided in Tartarus, the abyss of torment beneath Hades, and was the mentor and consort to the most deadly monster of them all, Typhon. Lots more info and pics are on my Pinterest.

³ There are several versions of Echidna's parentage and most of them connect her to sea gods and goddesses. I favour the version in which she is the daughter of Gaia, the primordial Earth goddess who was first deity to emerge from Chaos, and Tartarus, the god-personification of the abyss of torment below Hades.


	16. Afterward

o─-o─-o─-─-─-─ **WITHOUT THORN THE ROSE** ─-─-─-─o-─o-─o

Summary: When Lily died she left a broken James to raise a stranger's son. When a drunken act of violence sees James demoted to prison guard, Harry is inducted into the mysteries of Azkaban, and begins to solve the mysteries of his own existence, as well. SLASH. AH/AU. Some RL/SB, RL/JP, future LV/HP in sequels.

Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling.

Warnings: SLASH. Not in every chapter, but in some.

Notes: Thanks for all the reviews, favs, and follows. 100+ reviews, yay! In response to a couple of questions about last chapter - Harry was not locked in a cell at the end of chapter 14. James had a tryst with a fellow _guard_ (female), not a prisoner, in an abandoned cell, then asked her to leave so that he could take a kip (in the cell). Harry and the female guard were both _outside_ the cell when James closed the door, not inside it. I'll rewrite that to make it more clear.

Well, here it is, the last chapter of this story. I am hard at work on the sequel, trying to come up with some twists and turns to entertain you all. I expect to start posting that in about three months' time, if all goes as planned. Of course, in three months I'll be back in school and being a T.A. for the first time, so we'll see. I'll post a new chapter on here with a note when I start posting the sequel. Anyway, this chapter is the denouement, so it wraps up some of the lingering questions, but there are still a few loose threads that won't be picked up until later.

o─-─-─-─-─ 16. AFTERWARD ─-─-─-─-─o

Harry woke to the soft murmuring of voices and the warmth of sunlight across his face. He opened his eyes to the sight of swaying trees. _Trees!_ There were no trees on Azkaban.

Harry looked around groggily, shielding his eyes from the bright light of the window. He was lying in a bed made up all in white, in the corner of a room sectioned off by pale blue curtains. That told him that he was in Mungo's. A stripe of wallpaper decorated with smiling animals told him this was the children's ward. Harry could hear a dozen different voices conversing in low tones.

"…tibia fractured in three places…"

"…spell damage to the retinas…"

"…time for your potion, Mr…"

Harry massaged his temples, trying to remember how he had gotten here. It came back in a dizzy rush, and he stared at the ceiling with mute horror, remembering all the crimes he had so casually committed. Did they give eleven-year-olds life sentences?

A rattle alerted him to someone drawing the curtains back. It was James. He seemed startled to find Harry awake, and, for a moment, wavered on the verge of leaving again. Harry couldn't read the man's face. It spoke, perhaps, of worry and love, but also of anger and resignation.

"Harry," James said, pulling up a chair by the bedside. "Son."

"Dad," Harry answered cautiously, wondering if his injuries had triggered James' protective side.

"I have a few questions for you," James continued.

Harry looked away, sighing, as dread mounted inside. It was like that, then. Still. He watched the trees swaying in the bright sunlight outside the window, and remembered swaying in green light. Surely if he could survive three attempted murders, he could survive one conversation.

"How long have I been here?" Harry asked quietly.

"Two days."

"I see. What—what happened?"

"I was hoping you could tell me that."

Harry glanced at the shadows moving on the curtain, and James, following Harry's line of sight, cast a privacy spell that muted the sounds of the ward.

"Who found me?" Harry asked, smoothing the white cotton blanket covering him, to give his nervous hands something to do.

James sighed, then pulled a rolled-up newspaper from his back pocket and tossed it on the bed.

The cover of the _Prophet_ had a three-inch screaming headline and a picture of Harry being cradled in James' arms as his father marched into St Mungo's. There was the fiercely protective expression Harry had hoped for. It must have worn off while he was sleeping.

_**BOY-WHO-LIVED KIDNAPPED, ASSAULTED BY CULT**_

_In a shocking development last evening, Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, was admitted to St. Mungo's Hospital. Potter, 11, currently resides on the island of Azkaban along with his father, Auror and wizenguard James Potter. The junior Potter, unconscious, badly burned, and bearing several stab wounds, was discovered by his father in an abandoned sub-basement of the wizard prison, and was rushed to St Mungo's immediately by the senior Potter, who also notified Aurors of the grisly scene at Azkaban. At present, the younger Potter is still unconscious, though healers expect a full recovery._

_According to the official report of the DMLE, the area in which Potter was discovered is normally used as an ossuary to store the skeletal remains of deceased prisoners. The scene bore unmistakeable evidence of recent dark magic and blood rituals, possibly including human sacrifice. Aurors also discovered the body of Wizenwarden Fintan Oakes, who perished from a severe blow to the head, and the mutilated remains of one hundred and eleven former prisoners of Azkaban, in various states of decay, contrary to approved methods of interment._

"_It was a chamber of horrors," one witness claimed. "Dead bodies everywhere, naked, rotting."_

_Sources who wish to remain anonymous indicate that certain members of the Wizenwatch, including Wizenwarden Oakes, had formed a cult and were regularly engaging in dark magic and rituals. What purpose the improperly disposed bodies may have served in their rituals is unknown. A survey of the records has revealed gross irregularities, including several prisoners whose remains are missing. Investigators have been working around the clock to restore order to the records._

"_At present, the bodies we are currently missing are those of Sirius Black, Bartemius Crouch, Jr., and Bellatrix Lestrange," Senior Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt said at yesterday's press conference. "Given the irregularities at Azkaban, we must assume that they may in fact still be alive."_

_Inmates Rabastan and Rodolphus Lestrange, the notorious Death Eater brothers, also appear to have escaped during the uproar at the prison. At present, Aurors do not believe this to be a related matter. Unconfirmed rumours are circulating that a large contingent of the dementors may have abandoned the prison, as well. The Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures would be in charge of that investigation, if in fact the beings have abandoned their posts._

_Members of the Wizenwatch are currently being questioned as to their knowledge of the cult and the escapes, but James Potter has already been announced as the new Wizenwarden. At the press conference, he announced that each wizenguard would henceforth undergo more rigorous screening procedures, beginning with those still in the employ of the Ministry._

_See page 3 for details about the Death Eaters who may be at large…_

_See page 4 for an analysis of cults in wizarding Britain…_

_See page 5 for a discussion of whether children should be allowed to reside on Azkaban…_

_See page 6 for an overview of security measures at Azkaban…_

_See page 7 for a biography of the new Wizenwarden…_

Harry set the paper down. "Congratulations," he offered. James cocked his head. "On your promotion."

James cleared his throat. His expression was inscrutable. "Thank you."

Harry stared at his knees.

"What happened?" James asked flatly.

Harry looked out the window at the trees again. He thought for a moment. "I was in the attic, playing with Lady. Someone knocked on the door, and when I opened it"—he broke off and shrugged. "I dunno; they must have knocked me out. It's all a bit of a blur after that."

Harry glanced up at his father with a guarded expression. James was staring at his son with a completely blank face save for a slight tension around his mouth. After a moment, he crossed his arms and jerked his chin.

"They saved your hand, but I'm afraid there's a piece of coral wedged in it that can't be removed."

Harry lifted his coral-pierced hand and made a show of examining it, but said nothing.

"You don't seem surprised," James noted.

Harry glanced sharply at his father. "Just trying to keep a stiff upper lip," he replied guardedly.

James nodded slowly. "The healers tell me you were suffering from magical fatigue. They seem to think you must have used some serious accidental magic." His gaze was that of a raptor.

"Well, I was stabbed," Harry pointed out. "It was rather painful. I do remember that bit."

James' eyes softened momentarily, but he reverted to his Auror expression quickly. "Too bad your uncles absconded. You won't be able to do a blood test."

"No, I suppose not."

James bored a hole into Harry's eyes with his stare until Harry had to look away with a gulp. James leaned forward and spoke in a low voice despite the privacy spell.

"You know, I've half a mind to pour a vial of veritaserum down your gullet."

Harry laughed tremulously, unable to hold it in. "Why don't you, then?" he choked out, his hands fisting the sheets.

James took a deep breath and released it. "I don't know," he answered quietly, looking out the window, perhaps for the same reason Harry had. "I don't know…" His voice was sad, lost, and some inner struggle was narrated on his face.

Harry closed his eyes and hated himself for not being the son his father wanted. The distance between them was so painful. He wanted his father to wrap him in one of those strong, warm embraces, and tell him that everything was going to be all right. For a moment, he even considered confessing everything. But that would put an end to his freedom—an end to windy, starlit nights spent climbing towers; an end to wrestling with the sea and with souls; an end to bargaining with murderers and thieves for secret knowledge. Harry drew a tremulous breath, and knew that no matter how much he might crave his father's trust again, he could never be the sort of son who was worthy of it.

There was a long silence in which neither Potter knew what to say to the other.

"The paper said some of the dementors might have left," Harry recalled at last. "Are you still using the rest, then?"

James nodded. "It's true, a hundred or so have disappeared. I've never agreed with the use of dementors, but the Minister is ultimately in charge of the way Azkaban is run, and he insists that we can still trust them."

"You can't," Harry warned sharply. "They attacked me."

James searched his son's face. "Nevertheless, it's their island as much as ours. You'll never get the Ministry to admit it, but unless we pack the prison with patronuses, there's no way to get rid of them. We'd sooner move the prison."

"They can be killed. All you have to do is combine a cutting curse with a patronus." Harry's stomach fluttered in anxiety at revealing this information, but he had to try. "I don't think you can do it with a wand; it's not Ministry-approved magic, but…it's not hard."

James' face grew ominous. "You're talking about dark magic."

"No, not dark magic—_wild_ magic. _Free_ magic."

"_Dark_ magic."

"No!"

James leapt to his feet and paced agitatedly, rubbing his already messy black curls into a wild mane. "Gods, Harry! Do you know how it would look if it were discovered that you, that _you_ of all people, have been studying dark magic?"

"Then don't tell anyone! Kill the bloody things yourself! Only, _do _it! You have to, they're dangerous—they could turn on you at any time, like they did on me. Listen to me, they're not mindless beasts like you think they are."

"You can't know that."

Harry made a pained noise. The last thing he wanted to do was confess this, but feared for his father's safety, and his own. The cultist guards had been dealt with, but the dementors remained free.

"I do know. I've—spoken with them. I can understand them. They're intelligent, and they follow an agenda of their own." Harry was too afraid to meet his father's eyes during this confession, but after a moment of frozen silence, he finally ventured a glance.

James was staring at his son in frozen horror, as though he'd never seen him before in his life.

"Dad, please…" Harry tried.

"Stop," James said vehemently, turning away and holding up a hand. "I don't want to know. Whatever you've done, whatever you _are_"—he shuddered. "I can't…I just can't."

Harry bit his lower lip and battled the rising tide of tears in his eyes.

James straightened his wire-rimmed glasses, and went to the curtain. "You'll have to speak to another Auror soon, so I suggest you get your story straight—for your own sake, if not mine."

Harry's throat was too choked up to speak another word, so he watched his father leave in silence.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

_April 14, 1991_

_Ottery St. Catchpole_

_Dear Harry,_

_Luna and I are writing to see if you're all right. We read in the paper about what happened. Are you all right? Luna wants to know when you can visit. She insisted I enclose a special tea for you made of powdered troll callus, to toughen you up. I'm not sure I'd drink it if I were you, but I watched her make it, and I reckon it won't kill you, at least._

_Hope you feel better soon._

_Yours truly,_

_Neville and Luna_

_P.S. – Do you know anyone called Stubby? Luna wants you to bring him round for tea soon._

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

_April 17, 1991_

_Venice, Italy_

_Dear Harry,_

_I'm so sorry to break this to you via letter, instead of at your bedside as I would much prefer, but I'm afraid that this is for the best. I am taking an extended vacation from Britain. Events of late have put your godfather in a precarious position. I'm sure you understand what I mean. With security measures soon to increase throughout wizarding Britain, it's better that those of us who have been tarred with a dark brush make ourselves scarce._

_I hope you will continue to write to me often, until time and the fates allow our paths to cross once more._

_All my love,_

_Remus_

_P.S. – Take care of your father, Harry. He does love you, very much, even if he has trouble showing it._

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

_**FREDERICK SPURLING, IN MEMORIAM**_

_Frederick Spurling, 94, known to his friends as "Freddie", died last evening at his home in Chiswick. Spurling, a sixty-two year veteran of the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures, suffered from a weak heart, and passed away after a massive heart attack._

_Readers may recall that Spurling was the sole survivor of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures after Sirius Black's horrific attack on the Ministry of Magic in 1980. After witnessing Black's initial attacks, Spurling rushed to the Atrium in an attempt to thwart the horde of slavering werewolves Black had unleashed there. Spurling's efforts undoubtedly saved many, and he will forever be remembered by those whose lives he touched. He was awarded the Order of Merlin, Third Class, for his heroic actions._

_A small, private memorial will be held next week, and any members of the public who wish to send their condolences to the family are urged to make a donation to the Dark Creatures Survivors Fund._

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

_20 April, 1582 A.E._

_Malfoy Manor, Wiltshire_

_Dearest Cousin,_

_I write in hopes that you are making a speedy recovery from your recent ordeal. It must have been terrifying. Please do write and let me know how you are getting along. My thoughts and prayers are with you. Two recent houseguests of mine also send you their love and sincerest gratitude. They wish you to know that they are very much enjoying and making full use of the lovely cloaks that you gifted to them. A fine cloak makes travelling seem as easy as flying, I always say._

_Draco is getting excited about the upcoming year at Hogwarts, and wants to know whether you would like to meet for ice cream or some such at Diagon Alley when you do your school shopping. Perhaps you would also like to see some of your family? It is so regrettable that we are cousins and have yet to meet. Please let me know if this is agreeable, so that we can make arrangements._

_With Much Love,_

_Narcissa Black Malfoy_

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

_**DEMENTORS POSTED AT DIAGON, HOGWARTS**_

_In a bold move last evening, the Ministry of Magic announced that dementors will be posted in key areas throughout wizarding Britain. This strategy comes in response to the escape from Azkaban of convicted Death Eaters Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange, and the suspected at-large status of Sirius Black, Barty Crouch, Jr., and Bellatrix Lestrange, and serves to explain the absence from Azkaban of a large number of the creatures._

_Dementor guards will be posted at Diagon Alley, Hogsmeade, Hogwarts, the Ministry, St. Mungo's, and other key magical locations that provide potential targets for the Death Eaters. Citizens are asked to extend the same respect to the dementors that they would to any other representative of the Ministry._

_See page 4 for commentary on the safety of using dementors…_

_See page 5 for instructions on casting a patronus charm…_

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

_May 5, 1582 A.E._

_Durmstrang Institute for Magical Learning_

_Scandinavia_

_Dear Mr Potter,_

_In response to your letter of April 30, Headmaster Karkaroff has personally reviewed your application and is pleased to extend you an invitation for enrolment at Durmstrang for the upcoming school year. Per your status as a half-blood, continued enrolment thereafter will be contingent upon maintenance of passing grades in all courses and completion of the first-year seminars 'Wizarding Etiquette', 'Wizarding Governance', and 'Wizarding Ethics'._

_Please find enclosed your acceptance form, which requires your magical signature and the magical signature of your legal guardian. Once we have received your acceptance, further instructions will be issued in regard to preparing for the upcoming school year._

_The staff of Durmstrang very much looks forward to meeting you and working with you in future._

_Yours Truly,_

_Ulrik Winther_

_Lieutenant Headmaster_

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

_May 13, 1582 A.E._

_Durmstrang Institute for Magical Learning_

_Scandinavia_

_Dear Mr Potter,_

_In response to your letter of May 8, I regret to inform you that although Durmstrang exists outside the boundaries of any magical nation, we do recognize and enforce the laws of each student's home nation as regards legal guardianship of that student. As your guardian has not granted permission for you to attend Durmstrang, we must regretfully comply with his wishes._

_We do hope that you will consider us again at this time next year._

_Yours Truly,_

_Ulrik Winther_

_Lieutenant Headmaster_

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

_**SCANDAL IN HOUSE BLACK**_

_Members of high wizarding society were shocked last week to learn that Lucretia Black Prewett, 67, of London, and current head of the family Black following Arcturus Black's tragic Erumpent hunting accident earlier this year, has been admitted to the Janus Thickey Ward at St. Mungo's. Prewett apparently has been suffering for some time under the delusion that she is, in fact, Helga Hufflepuff. This reporter was unable to secure an interview with Prewett—or Lady Hufflepuff, as she now prefers—but reliable sources have it that she has taken to knitting and speaking with a Welsh accent._

_Perhaps even more shocking than this tragic fate is the identity of the person responsible for admitting Mrs Prewett to St Mungo's—her very own daughter, Electra Black. Older readers may recall that before Lucretia Black became a Prewett, she conceived a child, Electra, with her second cousin, Alphard Black. Whereas Lucretia married well and became a society matron, Alphard raised their child alone and was later disowned by his family. At the tender age of 16, Electra Black disappeared amidst a storm of unsavoury rumours regarding her relationship with Rogerick Lestrange, elder brother of Death Eaters Rodolphus and Rabastan. Rogerick also disappeared shortly afterward, and most assumed Electra had perished at Rogerick's hand—until today._

_Electra Black has been spotted several times in recent days in and around St Mungo's, the Ministry, and Gringotts, and she confirmed when questioned by a reporter that she had indeed assumed the mantle of the Black family head. She declined to comment, however, when asked where she had been for three decades and what had become of Rogerick. According to Ministry records, the current heir to the Black fortune is now Narcissa Black Malfoy, with heir-in-waiting Andromeda Black Tonks._

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

_Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry_

_Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore_

_(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,_

_Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)_

_Dear Mr Potter,_

_We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment._

_Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Minerva McGonagall,_

_Deputy Headmistress_

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

As Harry darted and dodged through the crowds packing Diagon Alley, he tried to keep his father's head of messy, tufted hair in sight. At 6'4", James' head bobbed well above most others, but Harry was distracted by shopping bags walloping him and shoppers elbowing and shouldering past him.

James had received a hefty bonus, ostensibly for agreeing to be the next Wizenwarden, but in truth as recompense for the incident with Harry. In spite of this, Harry had still ended up with used books ("No one needs new ones; it's a waste of money") and robes that skimmed the floor ("I won't have a bonus like this next year"). Harry didn't mind, though. On the contrary, he was overjoyed that his father was even speaking to him again.

As Harry wended through the crowd, he recognized a familiar, chilly sensation, and swivelled to scan the area. The dementor hovered several feet above the throng, at the corner of Diagon and Minim Alleys, and the sight of the hateful being made Harry hiss through his teeth. Bouncing on his tiptoes, Harry could make out his father's head passing Flourish & Blotts, a block ahead, and that made his decision for him.

The dark-haired boy ducked into an alleyway across the street from the dementor. He had been practicing, and it was little burden, now, to scale the brick wall of the building while maintaining his invisibility. Four stories up, Harry crouched, aligning his shot. He didn't think the spell he intended to use would hurt humans, but he didn't want to test that theory.

Preparations complete, Harry focused on happy thoughts of his mother—_smiling green eyes, swirling red hair—_and shot a cutting curse through them. An arc of silver, trailing wisps of energy, flew from his hand and struck the dementor, slicing its head in half cleanly.

Screams and shouts from the crowd erupted as Harry jumped to the floor of the alleyway, landing on a cushioning charm with only a slight jolting sensation. He quickly re-entered the crowd, still invisible. He should make his way away from the scene of his crime, he knew, but curiosity nudged him closer to where the black-robed wraith had fallen.

"I saw it!" a young witch, probably a student of Hogwarts, exclaimed, as Harry shouldered past the last few rows of gawkers. "I'm telling you, it fell _right there_!"

"Then where is it?" a woman, probably the young witch's mother, demanded. She gestured angrily to the empty patch of cobblestones which was already beginning to close up like water rushes to fill a void.

Harry caught his breath and raked the street all around them with his eyes. _Gone—how?_ He searched the faces of the onlookers.

Abruptly Harry's stomach dropped with a lurch, and his heart leapt up into his throat. Not two metres away, across the rapidly closing circle, _she _stood. He knew those deep-set black eyes, that pink, bow-shaped mouth, the glossy black waves of hair. Yet it was not the woman's face that filled Harry with dread and terror. If her face had been all that he recognized, he should have been quite pleased, really. It was her soul that frightened him.

The soul was of the usual size, and nothing about it suggested anything amiss. Except for the fact that, twined throughout the pulsing orb of light, ran strands of the same soul that had been emblazoned on Harry's nightmares.

Electra Black—and threaded through her soul, the soul of the goddess, Echidna.

Harry was invisible, yet, somehow, she met his gaze. The woman, Harry's grandmother, smiled widely at him with a knowing, amused glint in her eye. Then she turned and disappeared into the crowd.

─-─-─-─-─o─-─-─-─-─

TO BE CONTINUED in _Music from a Farther Room_


End file.
